STUDIES IN OPTIMISM 



OR 



SUBJECTS SUGGESTED BY THE HUMANISM 
AND HOPE OF THE TIMES. 



BY 



AFFORD BROWN PKNNIMAN 

Author of the " History of Union Church," '• The Fruit of the 
Spirit and other Sermons." 



ADAMS, MASS. 

FREEMAN PUBLISHING CO. 

1902. 



the library of 
congress. 

Two Copies Received 

FEB 2 1903 

Copyright Entry 
'CLASS 6L XXc, No 
\ COPY B. 






Copyright, 1909, by Alford Brown Penniman. 



DEDICATED 
TO MY PATIENT READER. 



PREFACE. 

These studies are printed with the hope 
that they will not retard the new works of 
new days. They have been presented to my 
people in substantially the form in which they 
here occur. The themes have been chosen 
from that range where doubtful controversy 
finds the air too rare for breathing. They 
deal with Jesus as the head of humanity and 
not simply the head of the church. The 
great business of the preacher is to develop 
manhood, and the themes which serve this 
purpose are the large themes of faith, hope 
and love, divine humanism and optimism, the 
power of the Holy Spirit as ethical, rational, 
historical and immanent, the knowledge of 
God as derived from an unfolding brother- 
hood. 

The Bible is a theme, for the pulpit, as an 
evolution within an evolution, an inspiration 
recorded within an inspiration too great for 
record. Progress is often slow, because even 
good men have yet no practical belief in the 



PREFACE. 

truth that every man is immortal, rather than 
"immortable," and therefore has stamped 
upon him by his Maker the image and super- 
scription of his infinite value, attested by the 
cross of Christ. The cross is an accident 
incident to the freedom of man, but reveals 
the essential which abides in the love and 
eternity of God. To convince all men that a 
righteous society is surely coming on Earth, 
and each man of immortality, there must be 
on the part of all God's children a vital faith 
in the qualities for which the name of Jesus 
historically stands. 

A. B. P. 

Adams, Mass., December, 1902. 



CONTENTS. 



:rmon 




PAGE 


I. 


The Imperative and Privilege 






of Love .... 


3 


Ill 


Christian Optimism 


39 


III. 


Gaining Knowledge of God . 


. 71 


IV. 


The Value of Man 


91 


V. 


What is the Bible . 


. 115 


VI. 


The Gospel Power 


135 


VII. 


Life and Immortality . 


. 155 



I. 

THE TWO-FOLD IMPERATIVE AND 
PRIVILEGE OF LOVE. 



'The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal." 

— Rev. XXI: 16. 



'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that 

I seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me, 
Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: A Hand like this 

hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the 

Christ stand!" 

—Browning's Saul. 



"There are three possible states and moods under which 
the mind may fulfil its function. There is a dull and quies- 
cent condition, when reason and judgment act, but act with- 
out fervor. Power is there, but it is latent, jnst as heat is in 
the unkindled wood lying in the grate, but the heat is hidden. 
Then there is a higher mood of the mind, when, under the 
influence of conversation or reading, the mind emits jets and 
flashes of thought, through witticism or story; but this 
creative mood is intermittent and spasmodic. I^ast of all is 
that exalted mood when the mind glows and throbs, when 
reason emits thoughts, as stars blaze light; when the nim- 
bus that overarches the brows of saints in ancient pictures 
literally represents the effulgence of the mind. Work done 
in the lower moods is called mediocre; work done by the 
mind in the second stage is associated with talent, but when 
through birth or ancestry, the mind works ever in regnant 
or supernal moods, it is called genius. Affirming that all 
minds rise into this higher mood at intervals, we may also 
affirm that all the best work in literature or art or commerce 
has been wrought during these exalted states when love for 
the work in hand has rendered the mind luminous and 
crystalline." — Newell I>iri</Jit Hillis. The Investment of In- 
fluence, p. %65. 



I. 

THE TWO-FOLD IMPERATIVE AND 
PRIVILEGE OF LOVE. 



'But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had put the 
Sadducees to silence, gathered themselves together. And 
one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, 
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? And 
he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
This is the great and first commandment. And a second, 
like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, 
and the prophets."— Matt. XXII: 34-40. 



These Pharisees were partisans. The 
motive of their gathering was admiration 
for a man, who had silenced their adver- 
saries. The Sadducees did not believe in a 
resurrection. The Pharisees did. The 
crowd was hungry for argument. There 
was no delay. A theological lawyer asked, 
with an air of superiority, a question which 
now would surely be regarded as very 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

commonplace. His inquiry was made 
"tempting" Jesus, much as a cow-boy at a 
safe distance, protected by others, might 
seek, half in earnest, half in sport, to en- 
tangle a beast of burden or of prey. 

Jesus gave the lawyer the expected 
answer. The first and great command is 
to love God. But the lawyer's way of 
loving God was not the way of Christ. 
Jesus adds: "And a second like unto it 
is this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." The Scribes and Pharisees were 
notorious breakers of both commands. For 
them, ritual was love, Divine commands 
were priestly rules, beliefs and traditions 
were laws. For Jesus there were no rules, 
save those deriving authority from a prin- 
ciple. Worship, in his teaching, could not 
be substituted for that principle. To him 
there was no such thing as a guilty opin- 
ion or a ceremonial sin. There was one 
principle of love, with infinite applications, 
divided by two similar objects, God and 
man, Father and child. 

If God is love and the source of love, 
4 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

any intelligent being ought to love Him 
supremely. But in the real world, the 
order of the ideal is not the order of time. 
Before love can be intelligent, time is re- 
quired to escape wrong ideas of the object 
loved. To love the neighbor, as thyself, 
is not the same as to love the neighbor, 
as one ought to love himself. The former 
is Jewish justice. The latter is Christian 
principle. If our love to self be the meas- 
ure of love to another, then the higher the 
self-love, the more good bestowed. Love, 
for the better self, is given with "all the 
soul, might, mind and strength," that the 
neighbor may rejoice. Love for man, 
founded in a deep self-respect, is the key 
to Divine love. The second command 
comes before the first, because there is a 
law of all progress, that obedience to 
known law is the only way to arrive at a 
knowledge of the unknown. 

The invectives of Jesus Christ fell like 
hail upon the Scribes, because the}' had 
cauterized their human feeling, and were 
attorneys for a God having all the attri- 



INPEBATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

butes of a devil. They frightened the 
unlearned, by preaching future torment for 
those who would not neglect their parents 
to enrich the opulence of the Temple. 
Jesus asserted that the penalties of the 
future were for those who neglected their 
brethren. He was not a "vivisectionist of 
souls," but strong strokes were needed to 
pierce the conscience of a Scribe. God is 
not a great Pharisee. To love God we 
must serve man. That is real in religious 
thought, which has passed through relig- 
ious experience. We discover, b)' a living 
way, that God is not a being called love, 
but a lovable God. 

Love is one, indivisible and progressive. 
Not only is God love, but love is God. 
The Divine Spirit and Providence bring 
us slowly, but surely, into the consciousness 
of God. We may not say, This is human, 
that Divine. No one can draw the line. 
We live under such an economy, that to 
begin with any side of love, is an earnest 
of ending with a glorified humanity, whose 
length and breadth and height are equal. 
6 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

Perfect love has balance. This fact is 
emphasized, in the text, by the conjunction 
"And." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God * * and thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bor." Love comprehends all being, and 
ceases at the point of wilful exclusion. 
Love is manhood, including morality 
toward man, or righteousness, and morality 
toward God, or piety. Service expands 
the ideal. Ideals react and expand ser- 
vice. Kindness and firmness mingle. Zeal 
walks with patience. Dignity is both flex- 
ible and earnest. Bravery grows in grace 
and becomes courage. 

Verily, love is the science and art of liv- 
ing, the natural powers in tune, the whole 
carriage of the soul. Thence extend all 
gracious ministries, like the sevenfold 
colors of the sunlight. Love is not enthu- 
siasm, nor taste, nor the social nature, nor 
intellect, nor emotion, nor will-power, nor 
imagination. Love is enthusiasm and taste, 
and the social nature, and intellect, and 
emotion, and will-power, and imagination 
harmonized by the Spirit of God. 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

The first task is to control appetite and 
passion. Here the low lines of animal 
cunning assert themselves, and are imputed 
unto men for sagacity. The last vestige 
of this appears as spice in a late popular 
novel. The hero, David Harum, lays 
down the motto, "Do unto the other feller, 
the way he would like to do unto you, 
and do it fust." While we smile at the 
funny side of the fact, we can not forget 
that the strength of the story lies in its 
humanity. 

The history, of each individual, and each 
generation, epitomizes the history of the 
race, in our escape from animal domina- 
tion. The laws of Moses sustained the 
same relation to his own high plane as 
leader, that our civil laws sustain to the 
Christian ideal. The object of Moses was 
to secure decency. The commands writ- 
ten on stone were written for men just 
freed from chattel slavery. So far as their 
position in Egypt went, there was little 
difference between chattel and cattle. 
Their religion was sensual and their gods 
8 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

many. Laws, too ideal, would have been 
worse than none. The statutes were nega- 
tive. Men can avoid when they can not 
attain; or rather their avoidance may be a 
heroic attainment. Note how ten rules 
cleared the ground for the foundation of 
love. 

First. "Thou shalt have no other gods 
before me." The immediate force of this 
was, Thou shalt not deiiy fears and lusts. 

Second. "Thou shalt not make unto thee 
any graven image," means, Down with all 
that symbolizes the licentious. Abandon 
the cause of disease. The infancy of 
painting and sculpture, could not then 
have defense, without peril to the higher 
art of character. Before Art can be the 
handmaid of Religion, there must be devel- 
opment of morality, and a division of labor 
between Palestine and Greece. 

Third. "Thou shalt not take the name 
of the Lord thy God in vain." The rev- 
erent can not take root in the profane. 
The titles of God are too sacred to be 
dragged in the mire. Today it is clear, 
9 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

that the man who ever goes about in 
complaint, is swearing inside, however 
free from oath. The police force of Israel 
did not report this kind of profanity. 
Otherwise all the camp might have been 
under arrest, with no one on duty. 

Fourth. "Remember the Sabbath day, 
to keep it holy." It was more practical 
to regard one day than seven. It was 
wiser to observe one place as holy, than 
many holy places. Jesus taught that all 
things derive their sacredness from their 
power to benefit men. He would rebuke 
those who deprive workmen of a rest day 
on the same principle that he struck a 
blow for the liberty of his disciples to do 
works of mercy on the Sabbath. 

Fifth. "Honor thy father and mother: 
that thy days may be long upon the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee." 
At last we have an exception, a positive 
command. This rule had the aid of the 
family, in addition to public worship. 
Obedience enables the young path-finder 
to take advantage of the past. The patri- 
10 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

archal prepares for the national. The 
household contains the germ of God's self- 
revelation. Moses left to a later genera- 
tion the disposition to hammer this nug- 
get, till it enjoined all reverence and obed- 
ience, including the plain duty of "Young 
America" to respect his elders. 

Sixth. "Thou shalt not kill." Human 
life is sacred. Death followed trivial en- 
counter. The lawgiver himself had brok- 
en this law before it was written on stone. 
The rule forbade murder. Nothing was 
said about a quick temper. Many things 
kill. Foolish fashions, bad ventilation, 
long stairways, poor water-supply, dissipa- 
tion gradually murder men. Israel was 
commanded to avoid the craft and violence 
that end in immediate death. 

Seventh. "Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery." The worst form of impurity is 
singled out. Prohibition did not prohibit, 
but there were gains. Christ forbade the 
lustful eye. Moses was content with less. 
Now the rule is used to discourage all 
indelicacy. 

11 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

Eighth. "Thou shalt not steal." The 
rights of property are inviolable. It is not 
a question of title, but ownership. Courts 
can steal. Petty larceny is not half as 
criminal. When men led a plundering 
life, with no fixed abode, and with facility 
of escape, there was slight protection. 
Moses did not emphasize public spirit or 
systematic benevolence. There is a mod- 
ern discovery, that stealing time is steal- 
ing money. Returning borrowed articles 
is a late achievement. 

Ninth. "Thou shalt not bear false wit- 
ness against thy neighbor." The worst 
form of lying. Here is no injunction to 
love the truth. A half-loaf is thankfully 
taken. 

Tenth. "Thou shalt not covet." Seek- 
ing something for nothing, and without 
regard to the rights of others, is con- 
demned. This is the alphabet of political 
economy and ethics. Men were rolling in 
sloth and greed. The problem was to 
enforce a law insuring a few specified 
12 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness." 

These commands were adjusted to the 
average man. Doubtless some did not 
need rules about matters of their habitual 
regard. These souls were the heralds of 
love's own sunrise. Parental care fostered 
morality. The settled homes of Canaan 
took the place of the Arabian tent, kept 
the traditions and lessened the burdens of 
the people. Patriotism grew. Judges, 
psalmists and prophets arose, separated by 
lessening spaces. There w 7 as an ever 
growing company who exclaimed, "Oh, 
how we love thy law!" One speaks for 
others saying: 

"I,ord who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle, 

Who shall dwell in thy holy hill ? 

He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, 

And speaketh truth in his heart, 

He that slandereth not with his tongue, 

Nor doeth evil to his friend, 

Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor." 

Here is truth in heart and behaviour. 
Vague fear has given place to explicit 
reverence. The author has discovered that 
God loves the righteous man. 
13 



INPEBATIVE AND PBIVILEGE. 

In the drama of Job, we have this type 
of character at its best estate. Job will 
not swerve, though the God of his strange 
friends should turn against him. The 
hero pleads integrity as against power, 
and declares that he will do so till death. 
To please Omnipotence, he will not yield 
to pessimism and curse his own God of 
righteousness. 

Time would fail me to speak of all the 
prophets. Many voices join at last in 
singing with the skylark of the Psalms, 
who sings as he soars, and "soaring ever 
singeth." 

"The Lord is my shepherd, 
I shall not want." 

The spiritual element, of the Old Testa- 
ment history, merges gradually into more 
definite anticipation and forecast, till the 
history and revelation culminate in Jesus 
the Christ. 

The New Testament lifts all former stand- 
ards into a white light. Sufficient moral 
preparation to receive a revelation, ever finds 
God ready to reveal. Duty becomes in- 
14 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

tense. How can a man get right, when 
the high ideal of Jesus has increased the 
task a thousand fold ? When at last even 
the Jobs and Isaiahs must change their 
minds, and cry out in despair, "Who shall 
deliver us from the body of this death," 
what can the weakest man do ? The 
answer is found in that unique personal- 
ity, who joins love to God and man. 

We have seen how God has led men, a 
step at a time, from the range of outward 
conduct up to a point in history, where 
all currents of character seem to join in 
one man. We have his portrait in the 
New Testament. There were philosophers 
before him, but they had little sway with 
the masses. They did not appreciate the 
individuals of whom the mass is made. 
There were men of popular power, but 
they failed in depth and continuity. Men 
of zeal arose, blindly buzzing themselves 
in and out of the world. To Jesus relig- 
ion and morals seem easy save in the 
wilderness, in the garden and at the cross. 
He kept close to men, and bore their sins 
15 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

and sorrows. He fought and won every 
battle, to which human powers are ex- 
posed, and his baffled temptations came 
and fled on higher planes, and under more 
subtle disguises, than those which over- 
whelm us. Nevertheless he conquered. 

Men grope upward looking for God. 
He came downward as a sunbeam. His 
descent was without condescension. He 
honored the good already in the world. 
He did not preach a new law, but the 
rounding out of the old. "The Kingdom 
at hand" makes all possible peace with 
the past. He asked in effect, Am I ac- 
cused of forsaking the law and the proph- 
ets? "Blessed are the poor in spirit," the 
teachable and open minded toward all that 
is true in the past, "for theirs is the 
Kingdom" of the future. "Blessed are 
the meek," for they shall have pursuing 
them all the promises of earthly prosperity 
promised in the olden day. The soul lens 
is delicate and accumulates dust, but 
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they 
shall see God." Such purity has a right 
16 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

to correct the old laws. A look may be 
adultery. Anger is the spirit of murder. 
Love for our unrighteous neighbors and 
enemies should supplant retaliation. This 
is the example of God and the destiny of 
his children, to love where love is needed. 
The preacher appears before them as the 
son of a carpenter. He does not declare 
himself the Messiah, though he does de- 
clare the Messianic principle. If he were 
a false prophet, the unlearned could test 
him by his fruits. Life appealed to life. 
What an appeal ! What a life ! His was 
a character, which joined humble submis- 
sion with the proudest freedom. Some 
soar among the clouds. Others despising 
sentiment, walk on the ground of reason 
working toward matter, and never feel a 
wing-beat. Jesus was ideal and real. 
The lamented Ruskin, however partial to 
one artist, taught us the beauty there is 
in truth. Carlyle taught, however savage- 
ly at times, the truth there is in beauty. 
The Christ brought beauty and truth into 
perfect vital union. Inward and outward 
17 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

beauty combined with inward and outward 
strength. If others were coldly secu- 
lar, he gave to all things a spiritual glow. 
If others have identified all progress with 
some special stage of it, he knew no arrest 
of development. If there is any teaching 
for all ages, that teaching is the teaching 
of Jesus Christ. There is a significant par- 
able of this truth, in the painting en- 
titled, "The Dream of Pilate's Wife." 
The artist, Dore, depicts the march of 
Christian civilization. In the background 
moves the great multitude whom no man 
can number. Three lights appear. One 
gleams from a lamp in the apartment of 
the Roman matron who is walking in her 
troubled dream. - Another glows from the 
cross upon the multitude. The third 
shines from the face of "that just man," 
whom to see was never to forget. These 
lights blend. Christ is inseparably joined 
to human history and welfare. He is not 
only a memory, but a prophecy, and not 
only a prophecy, but a presence. 

But, not to anticipate, let us still ap- 
18 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

proach the deep secret of love, in the 
rational faith that the best comes last. 
We find that Jesus practices his teaching 
of man's dependence on God. He sought 
solitude, where like the unruffled surface 
of some mountain lake, his soul, sheltered 
from the winds of the world, reflected the 
face of God. This dependence is not a 
defect, but man's normal state. The 
human becomes more human by commun- 
ion with the source of humanity. Jesus 
knew nothing of worry, the greatest curse 
of good men. He enjoyed an accumula- 
tion of power, due to repose of conviction. 
Where others talk of a "leap of faith," 
he took the firm step of faith. Ordinary 
life becomes extraordinary. Art and Nature 
yield hidden meanings. All Christ touches 
turns to gold. His themes break through 
all barriers of speech and race. They en- 
list the scholarship and the people of 
nineteen centuries. Five hundred years of 
the English Bible alone make a crescendo 
of moral grandeur. As the world widens, 
the power of God required by Jesus, is 
19 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

not less needed by his younger brethren. 
Love to man includes the complex sub- 
jects of a just wage, the tariff in relation 
Porto Rico, temperance at home, in 
Hawaii and the Philippines, sound money, 
the health of operatives, capital and labor. 
All such topics are religious or society 
will be infidel. Christians are learning 
that the Christian use of capital touches a 
thousand lives, where stated benevolences 
touch only ten. 

The objection is offered, in some 
quarters, that affairs of state and society 
belong to Caesar, and not to the Christ- 
ian. The Church and the ministry are 
told to mind their own business. Religion 
is one thing and business is another. 
This attitude ignores the fact that Christ- 
ianity has happily been so long in the 
world, that wherever it is in operation, 
there has been a passing out of the sanct- 
uary and the Sabbath into the mill, the 
market and the caucus. Many need to be 
reminded, as one has said, that in a 
20 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

republic, before, on, and after election day, 
ever)' citizen is a sovereign. 

The apostle Paul bore witness, that in 
this world we know in part and prophesy 
in part. This applies on both ethical and 
spiritual lines. We can not lay down 
rules and declare how vigorous ethical 
preaching should be, nor say how much 
penalty is wise for preaching in general. 
Preachers differ in ability to deal with 
subjects, motives and men. Christ chose 
preaching because living truth is the 
world's greatest power. Finney preached 
the dignity and freedom of the will, and 
gained the power of an unused truth. 
Bushnell taught the dignity of ever}^ 
faculty, and men came to realize that they 
were sons of God, not by analog3 r , but in 
realit}'. Men who learned of both these 
teachers, became not only "keen, active, 
executive" and sacrificing, but "sweet, 
kindly and fullsouled." In general the 
sower follows the plowman, as Jesus 
follows John. Edwards, Park and Finney 
21 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

are followed by Fairchild, Storrs and 
Beecher. 

There is difficulty in joining extremes. 
The broadest men feel it. The easier task 
is to find a middle ground. This com- 
promises questions too deep for compro- 
mise. Easier still is it to adopt an ex- 
treme. This man may be a fanatic. The 
man of the happy mean, may be a 
weather-vane. Our circumstances set limits 
to our activities, even when our sympa- 
thies are broad. He who made Loch 
Katrine immortal so that its simple scenery 
is a paradise of rhythmic lore and poetic 
feeling, was not the man w 7 ho would be 
likely to make that lake quench the 
thirst, and clean the streets of a city on 
the Clyde. 

Everything hangs on love, the law and 
the prophets, nature, science. That is a 
false religion which fears science. That is 
a false science which fears religion. The 
universe is unity in diversity. The open 
mind will not deny a fact, because a way 
has not been found to harmonize that fact 
22 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

with another. Christianity is a progessive 
religion, the sum of the truth in all 
religions, and vaster, but it can not yield 
all we desire for the satisfaction of rever- 
ent curiosity. Matter and mind are not 
one, but there is a unity which includes 
them. Science will lead us to God. God 
will lead us to science. Concerning men 
on either side of a dispute, now rapidly 
passing, there are more things in Heaven 
and Earth than are dreamed of in their 
philosophy. 

The world has often found two ideas too 
much for the shelf of one mind. One 
idea has been compelled to climb down 
without ceremony, that another thought 
might be comfortable on the same mental 
shelf. "Behold the man!" cries one. 
"Behold the God!" cries another. The 
broad browed Galilean says, for sub- 
stance, Surely two great and harmonious 
ideas are better than one. No one word 
is large enough to represent Christianity. 
James talks of works. He means deeds 
that do good as against abstract faith. 
23 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

Better silence in the prayer meeting and 
no sand in the sugar, than speech there- 
with. Paul wrote about faith. He means 
vital connection with the source of all true 
activity. John tells us, that if we do not 
love the visible brother, it is gratuitous to 
mention our love for the invisible God. 
In the familiar poem, "Abou Ben Adhem," 
the angel announces him as foremost, 
"who loves his fellowmen." The poet is 
right, provided there is no design to 
substitute philanthropy for religion. Paul's 
poem is better, wherein he tells us, that 
eloquence, theology, philanthropy, religious 
zeal, are all nothing without love. The 
mountain of love has many ways of ap- 
proach, is never twice alike, can not be 
appreciated from one place, at one time 
or by one person. Faith is present vision. 
Have not men, blindty wise, bent upon 
happiness, too long sought peace by obed- 
ience to law? In other words, has not the 
most important law of all been forgotten, 
the law of faith ? By faith I mean moral 
sense, "sanctified imagination," the power 
24 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

in us to appropriate our ideal., our God. 
The message is. Seek uot peace by obed- 
ience, but peace and obedience by faith. 
The wise man will put himself under the 
sway of love as Gospel, that he may be 
inspired for love as duty. In all ages God 
has led men by hope. They follow on to 
know the Lord, stumbling blindly upward, 
until they recognize their leader, and ex- 
claim with Thomas, " My Lord and my 
God." God is the strong warp, with the 
double thread of love from God and love 
to God. Man is the woof, with the 
intertwining threads of love to man and 
love from man. Christianity is the fabric. 
Write me as one who loves his fellow- 
men, who loves Christ, the manifold dis- 
closure of man, the heart of very God. 

When at last we reach the culumiation 
of the life of Jesus, we find in his death 
the same love which actuated his life. I 
can not believe that his death is like the 
death of the millions, who, in darker days, 
have been supposed to go like autumn 
leaves to enrich the globe. His love con- 
25 



IMPERATIVE AND PBIVILEGE. 

quers death. Love is no longer defined 
by a rule of reciprocity. "A new com- 
mandment give I unto you, that ye love 
one another as I have loved you." 

Surveying the finished work of the historic 
Christ, what is the precise power which 
any soul can use to surmount the sense 
of accumulated sin ? It is not an act of 
God, lifting us out of an undesirable into 
a desirable place. The power is not 
physical. The power that saves is moral. 
It is not any single moral act. The 
moral power is not an isolated deed of 
mystic sentiment, wreathed with fear and 
shadow about a Roman crucifix. In the 
voluntary death of Christ, the new com- 
mand of love is written in the largest 
type. His own ethics shrank at first 
from the bitter cup. The disciples fell 
into despair. Jew and Greek are still 
stumbled by the Cross. Not the will of 
Jesus, but the will of the Father, was 
done. The death of Jesus therefore is 
peculiarly the revelation of God's interior 
life, notwithstanding the victory in Geth- 
26 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

semane. Back of power, before all his- 
tory, within all souls, behind the single 
acts and incidents of redemption, there is 
an infinite suffering love for every human 
being. 

In the light of this event, we see that 
what Jesus was in his brief life on Earth, 
God is forever. Jesus is not only a host- 
age given by God to us, but he so iden- 
tifies himself with us that he struggled 
with God in the garden that he might 
remain. He gave up only when he saw r 
that it was expedient for us that he 
should go, in order that the local might 
become universal and that the Spirit of 
God might comfort us with the truth, 
that the "lamb was slain from the founda- 
tion of the world." 

We are led to think, not of our love to 
God, but of God's love for us. At the 
point w T here life and death met in the 
Son of Man there is the inmost disposition 
of the transcendent God. Not Jesus 
Christ, not Jesus Christ crucified, but 
Jesus Christ crucified yesterday, today and 
27 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

forever ! God does not make an offer of 
salvation. He is himself an everlasting 
free gift. Jesus is like an arm of the 
sea, bringing the very quality of the 
ocean far up between the peopled banks, 
which make a coast like that of Scot- 
land. The moon moved waters press in- 
land, rebuking the mouth of each propiti- 
ating stream from the inconsistent hills of 
fate, and give up their force and volume 
with resistless tide. 

The love of God passes measure, be- 
cause unconditional. Like all the upper 
and nether air, his love is pervasive, 
vital, electric. That which has ever been 
around and within men, comes to the sur- 
face of consciousness. Franklin's kite 
string and key gave us the use of elec- 
tricity. The historic Christ gave us, I say 
it reverently, the use of God. Sin does 
not cause God to deny himself. Sin is 
not an obstacle to love. God is God, be- 
cause prompt at the point of need. God 
is disclosed in the storm of sin and pas- 
sion, at first a flash light of the Eternal, 
28 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE . 

but at length inspiring all the sons of 
progress and providing the motor for the 
widest moral commerce. 

What then is the bearing of this interpret- 
ation of love on the Church and the individ- 
ual ? 

First, the relation of this conception 
of love to the Church. Christ is the un- 
qualified head of the Church just so far as 
the Church is identical with the social and 
spiritual Kingdom of God. The Church 
grows. It takes on more power and does 
more. There is ferment and expansion. 
There is being repeated, nowadays, our 
Master's last prayer for unity. This unity 
will not be formal. Christianity needs to 
be defined and enthroned before we can 
organize it. No one wants to see all the 
evils of all the sects combined in one 
organization. The first secret is learning 
that variety is necessary to unity. To 
insist on uniformity of belief is to fly in 
the face of Natuie and God, to turn de- 
nominationalism into a species of polytheism. 
The sects are variously equipped dispen- 
29 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

saries. We may expect too much or too 
little from them. They are work shops, 
not picture galleries, hospitals, not clubs. 
As the Church grows, she will learn to 
abandon much now thought to be neces- 
sary baggage. 

The devotional church needs the mes- 
sage, "Pure ritual and undefiled before 
God and the Father is this, To visit the 
fatherless and the widow in their affliction 
and to keep" itself "unspotted from the 
world." The church standing for a single 
ordinance, or for none, should hear again, 
"In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision 
availeth anything, nor uncircumsion; but 
faith which worketh by love." The emo- 
tional church will hear Christ say, "If ye love 
me, keep my commandments." The church 
of good works, will accept the message 
"This is the work of God that ye believe 
on [appropriate] him whom He hath sent." 
The doctrinal churches must heed that 
declaration, "Ye search the Scriptures, for 
in them ye think ye have eternal life, and 
they are they which testify concerning me, 
30 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

but ye will not come to me, that ye might 
have life." The church of the "last 
things" will accept the word, "Strive to 
enter in at the strait gate." 

The coming Church will make her doors 
as wide as love, as wide as the twelve 
gates of the New Jerusalem when placed 
side b} 7 side. She will be more catholic 
than the Roman, more apostolic than the 
Anglican, more devotional than Episcopa- 
lian. Emotion will have place, but the 
name Methodist will not survive. Symbols 
will improve, but the word Baptist will 
pass. Activity will be stimulated, but 
Unitarianism will not appear on the ban- 
ner. Men will go on thinking and mak- 
ing statements of belief, but Congregation- 
alism and Presbyterianism must lose their 
lives to save them. One clear note of 
love will re-sound in Christendom. Apos- 
tolicity, ritual, conduct, feeling, thought 
will be struck through with a vital atmos- 
phere. Mediaevalism and paganism will 
linger only in patches, like our April snow 
on the north side of a stone wall, or be- 
31 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

neath low clumps of evergreen. But 
even there some arbutus will neighbor and 
make no apology. The winter of discon- 
tent will pass. The presence of Christ 
will be the soul of the feast. 

Second, the bearing of this view of love on 
the individual. The law says we ought. 
The Gospel says we can. The invitation 
is extended not to talent, to culture, to 
creed or to character, but to every man. 
At no stage of our moral education does 
God stop us with an intellectual stone 
wall. He requires today what he required 
in the time of Hosea. "What doth the 
Lord require of thee but to do justly, to 
love mercy and to walk humbly with thy 
God?" The supreme question is, are we 
lovers of the best love we know ? This is 
the cure for doubt, for care and for sin. 
The steps are renunciation of all that is 
hostile to love, adherence to all that is 
friendly to love and the construction of 
love itself. Mistakes may be serious, but 
they are not sins. The only sin is a 
refusal to love. Having made the best 
32 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

choice, it is time for a man to ask, What 
are the ideas which live next door to 
love ? What wrong ideas have I about 
sin, immortality, Jesus Christ, God ? Prior 
to all is the duty of love. To illustrate, 
let us start with Jesus as a good man. 
Follow that goodness. The result is we 
are better men. We now appreciate him 
more. We follow that better conception 
and discover that he is the best man. 
The best man followed proves unfathom- 
able, therefore Divine. There is only one 
whom the world agrees to call the best. 
It is of very much importance to us, that 
we have the true idea of him, as a "hand 
reached down" from God and not a groper 
with other teachers of the world's history. 
More is it to Jesus Christ, that we appre- 
ciate his love than that we explain it. 

What is the plane of our ethics ? Are 
we living in the day of Moses, content to 
keep the ten rules ? Do we live in the 
later day of David or Isaiah, conscious of 
some gains, but without a grand ideal ? 
Do we live in a century, boastful of prog- 
33 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

ress, but forgetful of inspiration ? Ra- 
phael's St. Cecelia reminds us how poor 
and coarse are all our earthly attainments, 
in comparison with the Divine. The 
patron saint of music is surrounded in the 
painting, by Paul, John, Mary Magdalene 
and Augustine. They en]oy her render- 
ings. But while she plays, a melody of 
unseen angels makes their hearts beat with 
a joyous wonder. The earthly music is 
forgotten. The crude instrument, of late 
so full of charm, is fallen in deserved neg- 
lect. There is room for analysis of moral 
relations and conditions. We must weigh 
and measure, contrast, suggest and discrim- 
inate. But, oh, how wearisome is that pro- 
cess, when we have failed to bring down 
into it a sense of God's love. 

A second coming of the Son of man, 
with a body like Apollo, a purpose like 
Cromwell, an intellect like Shakspeare, a 
heart like St. John, would be incarnate 
weakness, compared with the constant com- 
ing again of the Christ in the soul. Love 
is the center and circumference of an infi- 
34 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

nite glory entering the humblest heart. 
Often what is called religion makes men 
hard and cold and partial and selfish. 
Often what is called morality makes men 
proud, ambitious, envious and avaricious. 
There is a music sweeter than the clink 
of coin. It is the music of the wedding 
feast. The bans have been declared for 
the marriage of the moral and the spirit- 
ual. There is a host, who stands ever)- 
test of quality, harmony, variety, richness, 
beauty and power. The severity of his 
justice is mercy in disguise. We know 
not what our stripes will be. We only 
know that we are accountable, not to a 
magistrate, but to a parent. Dynasties per- 
ish. The household daily grows in power 
to interpret God. We are no longer ser- 
vants, but friends. Is one so base, that he 
can give to such love, a seventh of his 
time or a tenth of his income ? Shall we 
give to God, only our sad feelings and our 
stated prayers ? Is business too good or 
pleasure too radiant, to associate with the 
source and crown of joy ? Faith means 
35 



IMPERATIVE AND PRIVILEGE. 

salvability. Love is salvation. Law is 
love. Love is law and Gospel. Honor to 
the law of liberty. All honor to the lib- 
erty of law. Hail to the two-fold love. All 
hail to the Chief in the legion of lovers, 
Who "hath joined together" what "no 
man" may "put asunder" law and love, 
Earth and Heaven, God and Man ! 



36 



II. 

CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 



"See, then, how the issue is forced. Either nature is suf- 
ficient of itself and wants no God at all, or else this whole 
idea, the history of which we have been tracing, is radically 
false. * * What, then, is the alternative view? It is the utter 
rejection, with Berkeley and with Swedenborg, of the indepen- 
dent existence of matter and the real efficiency of natural 
forces. * * In a word, according to this view, there is no 
real efficient force but spirit, and no real independent ex- 
istence but God." — Le Conte. Evolution and its Relation to 
Religious Thought, second ed. revised, p. p. 300-801. 

"It is eternal nature of God to give himself for men, that 
they may be lifted up out of their lowness and meagerness 
unto him. Now this view is to be found all through the Bible, 
from beginning to end, and it is to be found nowhere else, 
that I know of. as it is found in that book. * * It is the 
slowest and last thing for men to learn. I do not understand 
this to be the idea of Calvinism and Augustinianism. I hold 
Calvinism to teach the sovereignty of absolute will and wisdom. 
Every man is a Calvinist, no matter what church he belongs 
to, who has a great deal of will, and thinks it ought to domi- 
nate."— Henry Ward Beecher, Yale Lectures, Third series, p. S3. 

"Finallv, religion is not a creed, long or short, nor a cere- 
monial, complex or simple, nor a life more or less perfectly 
conformed to an external law; it is the life of God in the soul 
of man, recreating the individual; through the individual con- 
stituting a church, and by the church transforming human so- 
ciety into a kingdom of God."— Lyman Abbott, The Evolution of 
Christianity, p. 251. 

"I believe in a future age 3^et to be revealed, which is to be 
distinguished from all others as the godly or godlike age, an 
age not of universal education simply, or universal philan- 
throphy, or external freedom, or political well-being, but a 
day of reciprocity and free intimacy between all souls and 
God. Learning and religion, the scholar and the Christian, 
will not be divided as they have been. The universities will 
be filled with a profound spirit of religion and the bene orasse 
will be a fountain of inspiration to all the investigations of 
study and the creations of genius."— Horace Bushnell, Work 
and Play. 



II. 

CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 



"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; 
and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." — 
Isaiah XXXVI: 1. 



The message for the age is a message of 
hope. God resides in his world, and his 
world is daily becoming more conscious of 
the fact. The consciousness of this resi- 
dence is perfect in Jesus Christ. Let us 
survey a part of the ground of hope for 
the triumph of Christianity, the base of the 
claim for the exaltation of the Christ. 

Beginning at the bottom, we ask, what 
light do nature and science give, as afford- 
ing a basis for religion and righteousness? 
Whatever has been placed near enough to 
us, we can examine. Beforehand we could 
not say what forms creative energy would 
39 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

take. We explore what has been done. 
Agreements among men of science furnish 
certain facts. The universe has a behaviour 
excluding chance and caprice. This is law. 
Behind this habit is an infinite energy. All 
events have unity, continuity, veracity. 
Variety consists with the usual and unusual 
rather than the uniform. Change and prog- 
ress are constant. Within this ordered 
movement is intelligence. Everything has 
been "thought through." The primitive 
cords of the human heart thrill when we 
think God's thoughts after him. 

True, we have varying success. We learn 
by mistakes, but what we learn no man 
taketh from us. How mistaken were our 
first attempts to study the stars. Egyptian 
astrology cast men into shadows of super- 
stition about the birth hour, business and 
outlook on life. Waking from long sleep 
men ceased to believe the world flat. 
Astrology was exchanged for astronomy. 
To-day, in a rickety tower above San Min- 
iato at Florence, you can see the shabby 
apparatus with which that genius of the 
40 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

heavens, Galileo, toiled to extend our ideas 
from Ptolemaic to Copernican range. We 
have escaped, so as by fire, from a narrow 
world of space. 

Penetrating the crust of our planet, geol- 
ogy rose again to say that creation had 
been going on for millions of years, instead 
of six days. Our world is older than the 
trifling item of six thousand years. 

Men gathered up the dust of the earth, 
out of which according to the legend, man 
was created, and analyzed it. The magic 
black art of alchemy vanished before scien- 
tific chemistry. There is a partly meas- 
ured, and still measureless meaning, in 
every pebble of the side-walk. Every atom 
is eloquent. 

The work grew, so that no one man could 
be an all round scientist, Iyabor was 
divided. The astronomer, geologist, zoolo- 
gist, chemist, biologist, botanist, each in his 
own line applied himself, made his detour, 
and returning to report, all spoke the same 
word in the same breath, ''Progress!" 
Then they said, all science must be progres- 
41 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

sive. Another man came and said, Religion 
is the queen of the sciences, with a most 
royal progress. Our ideas of God have 
been Ptolemaic. They must become Coper- 
nican. Once the Divine method appeared 
mechanical, and we illustrated by the anal- 
ogy of a machine. Now we know the prog- 
ress vital, and we illustrate as our Lord, 
by the "seed," "blade," "ear" and "full 
corn." Once we considered creation instan- 
taneous, now we know that it is gradual. 
Waste does not hang so heavily on the 
heart, when we discover, that in the econ- 
omy of nature no fragments are lost. Last 
year's leaf will enrich the soil for next 
year's harvest. Impure water disappears by 
evaporation, to be glorified with purity and 
returned to the earth. The burden of proof 
lies with the man who claims that the 
"heedless world" has "lost one accent of 
the Holy Ghost." 

The strong and the weak are often in con- 
flict. There is, in the short run, such a 
thing as the triumph of brute force. But 
the struggle for the weak is more mighty 
42 



OHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

than the struggle against the weak. If not 
the animal world would be self-annihilating, 
in a brief period. Parental care of offspring, 
the extended period of human infancy, the 
foreshadowed cross even in the parental 
instinct of the lioness, reveal the survival of 
the weak. On the other hand where the 
weak go to the wall, they reappear to con- 
tinue the battle in new forms and on event- 
ually higher levels of power and sacrifice. 
Mind wins as against matter, brains over 
the brute, brains and conscience over brains 
alone. The Christian does not believe that 
the being, he calls God, has so low intel- 
ligence as to make a world, as a man would 
make a house, then lock the door and throw 
the key away, obliging himself to work a 
miracle to get back in again. If we, with 
our limitations, can by the telescope, the 
spectroscope, the telegraph, telephone and 
Marconi devices, somewhat master these 
enlarged worlds of space and time, how rea- 
sonable is it to believe that God is not less 
able, and to apprehend how he dwells with 
us, alike at home in the distant star, the 
43 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

microscopic flower and the spirit of man. 

Strangely true it is, that for ages God 
could give the millions no greater light, 
under the law by which light is imparted, 
than the light of nature. Nothing was 
ready-made. All this while he was laying a 
noble foundation. When your architect 
sends his building up twenty-five stories, he 
is careful to send it down, proportionately, 
below the ground level. So God anticipated 
no collapse, when millions of years ago, he 
began the foundation for the "house not 
made with hands," the full grown Son of 
God. 

In the second place, what light do the 
Scriptures shed to justify the hope of the 
optimist ? The genius of the Bible is sym- 
pathy for mankind. The first verse of Gen- 
esis substitutes a personal God for force and 
many gods. This God creates man in his 
own likeness. There is one key-note from 
beginning to end of the sacred parch- 
ments, the note of ascending sympathy. 
Discords exist as incidents to the process of 
an orchestra becoming attuned. Sin is in 
44 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

the world, but outmatched. The "head" of 
the serpent is bruised by man, while the 
"heel" of man escapes with a passing 
injury. Prosperity of all kinds will over- 
take the righteous nation. The sinner can 
be cured, though his sins be "as scarlet." 

Surely by this literature we are borne on 
a rising tide, a stream of prophetic glory. 
The river of water of life, rising in prehis- 
toric time, widens, deepens, gains momen- 
tum and majesty. On its bosom sail vast 
fleets of hope. It surpasses all the rivers of 
time, the Nile, fertile mother of nations, the 
Mississippi opening a continent, an East 
River or Hudson making market for the 
world. Follow the stream of the Bible, 
from the everlasting heights of Moses with 
God, down by the rich valleys of the Shep- 
herd psalm, through the broad plains, where 
sword is exchanged for plowshare, by the 
arid desert where the thorn gives way to the 
myrtle tree and to the rose. Listen to the 
beatitudes of Jesus, as they swell the cur- 
rent. Ponder the depth of the river, in the 
parable of the " Prodigal son," its peace in 
45 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

the ' 'upper room," its unlimited power to 
turn all the wheels of human life as it falls 
in the Niagara of the Cross. Behold the 
ideal of love inspiring Paul to give us his 
charity chapter, widening into God's ocean 
of love. The "fruit of the Spirit" grows 
on the river's bank by the automatic law of 
Heaven. Verily the Bible is the great 
charter of human rights, the history of the 
success of the strong, proving themselves 
worthily strong, because of their sympathy 
for the weak. 

Abraham, in the day of human sacrifice, 
spares the life of his son, by reason of a 
higher thought of God. Follow this trend 
and it leads to the passing of the Druids, 
and to the crumbling, at this very moment, 
of the Temple of Saturn in the Roman 
Forum. The absolutism of Pharaoh is 
strong, but not strong enough to keep the 
Hebrews in bondage. They depart to dwell 
in a land flowing with democratic ideas and 
righteousness. Woman ascends from polyg- 
amy to monogamy. The pessimist will no 
longer quote the passage " All is vanity," 
46 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

because he believes Solomon said it, and 
that any man with a thousand wives would 
say something of the sort. Household slavery 
among the Hebrews was almost dead by the 
time of Christ. 

The Gentiles are to share the privileges 
of the Jew, said Isaiah. They are on the 
same level with the Jew, said Christ. The 
autocratic idea must go. The Son of Man 
said: "You know that they which are 
accorded to rule over the Gentiles lord it 
over them, * but it is not so among you." 
It was not so at Scrooby or Leyden or Ply- 
mouth. In the obscure village of Auster- 
field, England, there is a little Anglican 
church, where Governor William Bradford, 
of Plymouth Colony, was baptized. The 
now sacred font, once discarded and used by 
the sexton to water his chickens, has been 
discovered and restored by those who 
cherish the memory of the noble Pilgrim. 
In an aisle, restored by Americans, a lawyer 
and member of that church, living in the 
adjacent village of Bawtry, has placed these 
words in bronze: <k To Governor William 
47 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Bradford, the foremost American to bear 
rule by the free choice of his brethren." 
Scripture is fulfilled. The poet of the peo- 
ple sings for us, with just such instances in 
mind." 

"Princes and lords are but the breath of kings 
An honest man's the noblest work of God." 

A.t the beginning of Christ's ministry, he 
read from the prophet of the exile, that pass- 
age he meant to stand for the central feature 
of his ministry. 

"The spirit of the I,ord is upon me, because he anointed 
me to preach good tidings to the poor. He hath sent me to 
proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to 
the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to pro- 
claim the acceptable year of the I,ord." 

At the end of his work, he said to his dis- 
ciples, that they would do, in his name, 
greater things than he had done. Verily 
the Scriptures breathe sympathy for all 
men, especially for the man who is down. 
Divinity is disclosed as, serving rather than 
receiving service, saving rather than con- 
demning. Deity prefers to suffer rather 
than inflict suffering, to forgive rather than 
punish. The Pharisee is condemned with 
48 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

tears, because he is a man; with severity be- 
cause of his inhumanity. 

The central petition of the Lord's Prayer 
is, that the " Kingdom" may "come and 
God's will be done on Earth as it is in 
Heaven." The New Testament closes with 
a sublime drama of victory. The shout of 
triumph rises above the din of conflict and 
the fires of the Roman persecution. How 
like a mighty tower of defense the Script- 
ures rise before the vision of the common 
people. When does a man appear so small 
as when he stands up beside the Bible and 
assumes that he can defend it or that it 
needs his defense ! 

We can go through the Scriptures and 
select another line of texts and so arrange 
them as to make a different impression, that 
is, upon the unwary. A mosaic of Bible 
texts, contradicting the genuine import, can 
be arbitrarily invented. There are many 
such. Verses torn from their connection, 
set out in false patterns, have deceived the 
very elect. The Pretorium has been re- 
paved. Over these cold and cruel pave- 
49 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

ments, they have again led forth our Lord 
for crucifixion, worse than that of Golgotha, 
because declared necessary to make, rather 
than express, Divine sympathy. 

From a third point of view, let us note 
how social progress, since Bible times, has 
justified the Christian optimist. During the 
Roman Empire, unwelcome children were 
exposed under conditions of peculiar horror. 
When escaping the teeth of dogs, they were 
sought, that their brains might be used for 
medicine. The drowning for babes was in- 
deed a happy escape from the world. 

Not long since children of tender age 
were doomed to drag carts in coal pits, har- 
nessed with women. Till Parliament passed 
a law in their defense, children were driven 
down hot smoking chimneys by cruel 
masters. Fewer by far are the sweat shops, 
where pallid, emaciated, scrofulous and con- 
sumptive children labor long hours for a 
wicked wage. 

Once a stranger was an enemy. In Ger- 
many, at one time, a year's residence was 
necessary to defend a tribe against one man. 
50 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Their proverb ran, "Two nights a guest, 
three nights a servant." 

Before Christ, in a great part of the 
world, licentiousness was a religion; since 
Christ, it has become a crime. The home, 
as an institution, has had a wonderful devel- 
opment. Birth occurs higher and higher on 
the scale of tendency to righteousness. 

Slavery's sun has set. Slaves make good 
ancestors, if far enough back. Britain, for 
two hundred and fifty years before William 
the Conqueror, raised British youth and 
drove young men and maidens in chains, to 
be sold in the open market, at port cities 
like Bristol. The historian, Bancroft, has 
stated that three and one quarter millions of 
slaves were taken from Africa by the slave 
trade in one century, and that of this num- 
ber two hundred and fifty thousand were 
thrown to the sharks from the ships, on the 
way to the colonial plantations. 

From the time of Howard and Mrs. Fry, 

the prisoner has been the constant study of 

the philanthropist. Formerly confined for 

life, herded without classification, starved, 

51 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

tortured, and all as a matter of course; now 
it has been demonstrated that the great 
majority of criminals can receive an inde- 
terminate sentence and go back to society 
good citizens. 

War, when waged for the excitement of 
bloodshed, received direction from some 
strong man, who ruled a limited area, pro- 
posing to himself do the plundering other- 
wise carried on by families. The church 
set limits to these "private wars." At last 
they were abolished. The nation confeder- 
ated the tribes. National alliances checked 
nations. International law scattered leaves 
of arbitration for the healing of the world. 
War changed its motive. The end is a pro- 
tectorate for childhood peoples. The next 
step seems to be the establishment of an 
international Supreme court to still further 
lessen the chances of war. 

Education, formerly possible for a few, is 
now compulsory for all. Time was when 
there was one Bible in the community and 
that chained even for Protestants. Five 
hundred years of the English Bible, to- 
52 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

gether with the study of every science and 
art consequent upon the revival of learning, 
tell their own story. We are informed that 
the Vatican is publishing an edition of the 
Bible for popular use. The little red school 
house has dug the grave of superstition. It 
has a right to be red. It has cost blood. Is 
it too much to hope that such men as Arch- 
bishop Ireland will help put the Bible back 
on the school teacher's desk ? 

With the rise of the people, governments 
have changed. They have no divine right 
save the right to secure the welfare of 
the governed. National governments the 
world over have become more representative. 
The barons still stand around King John of 
tardy pen, crying, "Sign, sign the charter!" 
King Charles still has his Cromwell. George 
the Third his Washington. The lamented 
McKinley called attention to the fact, that 
the only time Washington formally spoke 
before the Constitutional Convention, over 
which he presided, was when he success- 
fully appealed to the delegates for a "larger 
representation of the people in the National 
53 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

House of Representatives." On the Janic- 
ulum Hill, overlooking Rome and the Vati- 
can, stands the equestrian statue of 
Garibaldi. The feet of the war horse are 
firmly braced. The general imparts his 
spirit to the steed, seeming to say, "Here I 
stand and here I will remain!" On the 
side of the pedestal is an allegorical group 
representing America. Columbia, attended 
by Mercury of the winged feet, is saying, 
"Carry this message and motto to Italy and 
to the w T orld, 'The state forever without a 
church, but never without a religion.' " 

Survey industrial conditions. The pris- 
oner of war met death because there was no 
work for him to do. Later he went to the 
mines, the galleys and the fields. When 
freed from sale, he yet could own no land. 
Escaping serfdom, he gained a small wage 
for long hours. Wages rose. Thrift made 
him a capitalist. Toil and slow progress 
are attended with birth pangs. Men, of the 
strenuous life, seek by gradual rather than 
revolutionary processes, to protect the weak 
and make them strong, to capture the Rob 
54 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Roy of industry at the point where his in- 
justice checks industry, and threatens the 
public welfare. 

The golden rule is working better. The 
weal of all on Earth, not the welfare of a 
remnant hereafter, is our goal. No man is 
to be thrown down. All are to be lifted up. 
The task is difficult, but rewarding. Fewer 
put on brakes while we are going up hill. 

Doubtless when the report of Moses' 
death was at last believed, men said, 
"There never will be another man like 
Moses." But Abraham Lincoln was much 
like him. The disciples of John the Baptist 
no doubt said, "There will never be an- 
other." Savonarola, Carlyle and John 
Brown of Harper's Ferry look after that 
succession. Chrysostum, of the silver 
tongue, left a vacancy that was never to be 
filled, till Parker, Brooks and Beecher came. 
Such as Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson and 
Hawthorne make good substitutes for 
Dryden and Byron. Fielding and Smollet. 
Ian McLaren has added to Scotch literature 
a keen appreciation of the religious ele- 
55 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

ment not found even in Walter Scott, thus 
connecting beauty with truth and nature 
with God. 

Today, in Venice, the people are sad be- 
cause the Campanile has fallen. That beau- 
tiful shaft, of three hundred feet, guarded 
cathedral and palace for nine hundred years. 
The chimes rang joyfully to salute the sun 
as his first ray kissed the angel on the sum- 
mit; and his last said a sweet good-night 
to the Adriatic queen. The muse of archi- 
tecture today, mourns amid the "Stones of 
Venice" powerless to toll the wonted bells 
of grief. Men shake their heads and say, 
"All Venice is falling and there will never 
be another Campanile!" 

Nay! Not so. Look yonder. "Alps on 
Alps arise." Things are never so bad, but 
that they can always be better. Human 
life, character, skill and capacity are in 
their infancy. Art is being popularized. 
The useless will find use. Ugliness turns to 
beauty. The weak becomes strong. The 
strong true. There is to be a better Venice, 
a nobler Campanile. 

56 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Note a quiet and deep growth toward 
unity of human feeling. Beneath the dis- 
tinctions of race, color, climate, condition 
and creed, brotherhood seeks to answer the 
last petition of Christ for unity. This spirit 
is to wipe out what remains of the line 
between mass and class. Sects will continue 
to be born again into their higher and pro- 
founder agreements. Science and religion 
will find their interests identified with the 
development of the whole man. All bar- 
barous antagonisms and vestiges of animal 
cunning will fade away. 

Less and less do we hear men crying for 
the ''good old times;" times when banks 
were holes in the ground, when wealth was 
never active, save when building a palace for 
a king, or when the people were eager 
to erect a cathedral, for joy that the year 
one thousand came, without the ending of 
the world by fire and brimstone. 

Who asks to have again the day of 

Pompeii, whose wall-paintings can not be 

shown to women; the day when the vestal 

virgin cried "thumbs down" and the sand of 

57 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

the Colosseum was stained with martyr's 
blood. When in Rome, let us not forsake 
the assembling of ourselves, where the full 
moon rises above the roofless rim of the 
Vespasian amphitheatre. In this arena, 
numberless Christians hastened the rise of 
Christianity from the catacomb to the palace. 
Here, dying like gods, they defied the 
emperor and made death a greater pastime 
than they furnished to the "glutted eyes of 
Rome's proud populace." Do you ever 
sing ? This is the place and this the time 
for hymns; and if for one, that one shall be, 
"All hail the power of Jesus' Name." 

Oh, yes! Restore the olden day of the 
inquisition and ingenuity of horror. Get 
court evidence by the "ordeal of fire." Dig 
deep pits and put poisonous serpents in 
them, to sport with human beings. Bring 
back the rack, the fagot and wheel, the 
gridiron and boiling oil. Let us have holo- 
caust and black death, witch-craft and 
ascetic rigors. Perhaps there is a man pres- 
ent who wants a half-holiday of this kind for 
himself and family. 

58 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

If the social reincarnation of Jesus has 
wrought such changes in the dispositions of 
men, we shall not be surprised, as we pass 
on, to discover that our ideas also have 
changed for the better. Right thinking has 
advanced. We honor the "heretics of yes- 
terday," IvUther, Knox, Bruno, Huss. They 
were not heretics, but only called such. The 
real heretic is the pessimist. The Gnostic 
said, God is too good to touch the world. 
The Manichee said, The world is corrupt. 
Sin he declared a disease, not an act of will. 
Generation was in his view iniquity, regene- 
ration impossible, and the world hopelessly 
damned. Augustine, after all due credit 
is allowed him, was stained through with 
these mediaeval dyes. His world was lost. 
Adam fell from the summit of all good to the 
bottom of all evil, and took with him every 
member of the race. God was more than 
just, in consenting to save a few by divine 
decree, without the slightest reference to 
their character. This was done out of re- 
gard for Jesus Christ, not for man. This 
regard for Christ was conveyed to the 
59 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

knowledge of the elect, not directly, but by 
a succession of agencies, desirable to break 
the shock of even this alleged mercy. The 
priest, the saint, the virgin, the Christ, and 
at last, so as by fire, the Almighty conde- 
scended. It is not hard to see how the law 
took the place of vital creed. There were 
priests, but not a prophet whose life was 
safe. God was absent, the clergy present. 
A deposit of grace, transferred by specific 
conveyance through some intermediate 
agency, took the place of coming to him who 
never casts out. Tradition expels Scripture 
and reason. Salvation was defined as safety 
from future fire, and considered far more 
desirable than character here. The secular 
was unholy. The people, who then believed 
these things, were pessimists of course, but 
if one believes them now, we have no word 
left to describe him. He is a Pessimist, let 
us say, with a capital P. Such a one may 
believe that hell is a literal place of fire and 
brimstone, will turn his back on the noble 
teachings of Jesus, which employs fire as the 
symbol of purification and never as a symbol 
60 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

of torture. He will only escape, from his sad 
state of mind, when he learns that our Lord 
taught that to get a man out of hell, we have 
only to get hell out of the man. 

"Well, how about Calvin?" He escaped 
from the spiritual despotism of his age. He 
hit on the Scriptures as our guide. So far he 
was right. But the Scriptures, rightly 
understood, correct Calvin. All honor to 
the man who, had he been less stern, save in 
the matter of Servetus,we had been less free. 
But he carried over into Protestantism many 
an error of Augustine. He, too, unwittingly 
slandered Adam. But to the testimony. 
What do the four gospels say about Adam ? 
Not a word. Jesus is absolutely silent on 
the point which is made the strong staple on 
which Calvin and Augustine hang their sys- 
tems. Going back to the Old Testament, 
there is no word of recognition for Adam, 
save in Genesis. If we had found the same 
story of a serpent and forbidden fruit any- 
where else, we should have said, It is a para- 
ble with a moral like the parables of Christ 
himself. Take up the Acts and Epistles; 
61 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

silence reigns in John's letters, in those of 
Peter, in Paul in every book except one, and 
in every chapter of that book except one, and 
there he is illustrating, as an evangelist, for 
Jews, saying, If, as ye believe, all died in 
Adam, know that salvation is designed to 
extend as far as the curse. These innocent 
words of Paul have got into bad company. 
Pessimists can go to heaven, but does it not 
become pretty clear that they will have to 
back inf Surely "Every man is a sinner," 
but what about the profounder truth, that 
"Every sinner is a man?" 

No one shall outdo me in emphasis of the 
sovereignty of God, the responsibility and 
accountability of man and the redemption of 
the race. These were the great fundamental 
doctrines of the fathers which we have de- 
veloped. We have only honor for Pilgrim, 
Puritan, Covenanter and Huguenot. They 
nobly served their generation. Of what solid 
oak were they. After the first cruel winter, 
half their number dead, Bradford could 
write, "No one went back in the May- 
flower." They forsook their Egypt, not 
62 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

fearing the wrath of the Stuart king, and 
"endured as seeing him who is invisible." 
Pass by the skull and cross bones on their 
tombs. According to their light the Pil- 
grims were the children of joy. When re- 
embarking at Southampton, the crowd made 
merry over their plain clothing and dialect. 
They were said in derision to be going to 
America to "sing psalms through their noses 
and to live among salvages." They walk- 
ed by faith, not by sight. The men of sight 
are pessimists. The men of faith are op- 
timists. In every great enterprise the son of 
despondency will say, "Do it not." The 
son of hope will say, "I can and I will." 
Call them visionaries and men of dreams, 
but God will put them in the calendar which 
extends the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. 
They are approved watchmen on the walls of 
Zion— ever crying with the the true reformer, 
"The morning star! The morning star!" 
The last witness we may call the life of God 
in the soul. Society rests on its units. 
"The hope of glory here or hereafter is 
Christ in us," as individuals. Today the 
63 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Christian met defeat, but he has enlisted for 
a campaign, not a single engagement. His 
company is not the corps or the division or 
the army. To lose courage we have only to 
identify a part with the whole. One kind of 
weapon may fail, but there is a full armory. 
The individual faces a threefold situation. 
First there is the grade where hope is feeble, 
and requires strong stimulus. Then we have 
a second range where a moderate exercise 
of happy anticipation may be obtained by a 
moderate stimulus. Third, the self-kindling 
range of courage for the future marks the 
highest type. All the excitements, by which 
God stimulates men to advance, have their 
place, however mixed with human infirmity. 
We have organization, knowledge, creed, 
liturgy, business, useful and fine arts, litera- 
ture, journalism, philanthrophy, religious 
zeal. All these excitements fail without 
that love which the Gospel inspires. If or- 
ganization had been sufficient, the Roman 
church would have converted the world long 
ago. The victory of righteousness is won, 
not by might nor by power, but by the spirit 
64 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 
of God in his world. The mainspring of the 
world's momentum is the loving, sovereign 
God. "Thou art our Father though Abra- 
ham knoweth us not." The benevolent pur- 
pose of God, in earliest creation, notes the 
latest sparrow's fall. God sees the travail of 
his soul and is satisfied. "The whole crea- 
tion groans," but "he that hath subjected 
the same in hope," "not willingly," slumbers 
not. "The earth is the L,ord's and the full- 
ness thereof." It is easy for animal spirit 
to overflow, but to know the evil of the 
world, and looking beyond it, ever to rejoice, 
that is the attainment of the full grown man. 
The righteous cause is delayed, but not 
defeated. Progress is not made by a 
straight line. Rather, like the spiral railroad 
tunnel of St. Gotthard, it turns backward on 
itself while rising within the dark mountain. 
Now and then the train passes out on some 
favoring ledge, to still ascend, only to be 
again driven w ? ithin the mountain, forging 
upward till the full and open vision of the 
mountain height breaks upon the view. 
65 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Progress is sure like the general course of a 
ship which winds compel to tack — 

•'Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
'Tis of the wave and not the rock." 

Of what use is it to support the ark, when 
it can support itself ? 

"You may as well go stand upon the beach 
And bid the main flood bate its usual height, 
Yon may as well use question with the wolf 
Why she hath made the ewe bleat for her lamb, 
You may as well forbid the mountain pines 
To wag their high tops and make a noise, 
When they are fretted with the gusts of Heaven." 

as seek to prevent the ultimate victory of Al- 
mighty God. 

The hope of the believer rests in no sur- 
face feeling. It is no specialization of de- 
sire. It is the joy of living in a world of 
rich experience and magnificent forecast. 
The whole world lies at his feet. Rome 
brings organization. Art comes from Greece 
with philosophy. Mind, dominant over 
matter, is the gift of Asia. Conscience was 
the key-note with Israel. Germany, Hol- 
land and Britain stand for liberty. America 
attempts to fuse them all in a holy service 
of brotherhood. The vision of Paul, mak- 
66 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

ing Christianity the assimilator of all good, 
regarding "whatsoever" is "true" or "hon- 
est" or "pure" or "lovely or of good re- 
port," is best fulfilled in a land of world- 
wide welcome. America is, of all nations, 
nearest to the test. There are exclusions 
and compromises, but the tares are in the 
wheat, not the wheat in the tares. Outlook 
is based on no selfish Heaven, but eternal 
life in the present tense. The secret of a 
happy life is to get into the currents of God. 
Here is summer in the soul, expelling the 
"winter of our discontent," interpreting all 
permitted evil, as having in it the character- 
istic and primary mercy of God. They who 
complain, because they have been pushed 
aside by those who "strive and cry," may 
well take heart. They who "stand and 
wait" are God's reserves. "They also 
serve." Two worlds will realize what one 
world can not. 

"Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill 
To pangs of nature, sins of will 
Defects of doubt and taints of blood." 

67 



CHRISTIAN OPTIMISM. 

Standing where the two worlds meet is 
the Cross of Christ. By that God has sworn 
that he will bring men up out of prison 
and poorhouse, out of hospital and tene- 
ment, out of sin and ignorance. By the 
groans and tears of Jesus, by his scourging 
and bitter death, the word has gone forth, 
that God is everlastingly committed to 
fight man's battle with him, but not for him. 
There can be no bitterness in mystery whose 
heart is sacrifice. The Earth shall behold 
that bright hour of which prophets speak 
and poets sing. "The desert shall blossom as 
the rose." "The knowledge of the Lord 
shall cover the Earth, as the waters cover 
the sea." Hail to him, who rideth forth to 
victory, having on his vesture and on his 
thigh, a name written, "King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords!" 



68 



III. 

GAINING KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 



"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every 
one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that 
loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."— I. John IV: 7, 8. 

"There are hours, and they come to us all at some period of 
life or other, when the hand of mystery seems to lie heavy on 
the soul — when some life shock scatters existence, and leaves 
it a blank and dreary waste henceforth forever, and there 
appears nothing of hope in all the expanse which stretches 
out, except that merciful gate of death which opens at the 
end— hours when the sense of misplaced or ill-requited affec- 
tion, the feeling of personal worthlessness, the uncertainty 
and meanness of all human aims, and the doubt of all human 
goodness, unfix the soul from all its old moorings, and leave it 
drifting, drifting over the vast infinitude with an awful sense 
of solitariness. Then the man whose faith rested on outward 
authority and not on inward life, will find it give way: the 
authority of the priest, the authority of the church, or merely 
the authority of a document proved by miracles and backed 
by prophecy, the soul, conscious life hereafter, God, will be an 
awful desolate perhaps. Well, in such moments you doubt 
all — whether Christianity be true: whether Christ was man, or 
God, or beautiful fable. You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, 
What is truth? In such an hour, what remains? I reply, 
obedience. Leave those thoughts for the present. Act— be 
merciful and gentle — honest; force yourself to abound in little 
services; trv to do good to others; be true to the duty that you 
know. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain. And 
by all the laws of the human heart, by the word of God, you 
shall not be left in doubt. Do that much of the will of God 
which is plain to you, and you shall know of the doctrine, 
whether it be of God.'— Fred W. Robertson, Obedience the 
Organ of Spiritual Knowledge. 



III. 

GAINING KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 



"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 
Matthew V: 8. 



There are two kinds of truth, physical 
and moral. The best knowledge concerns 
moral sense. This is the knowledge of God, 
because he must give final significance to 
the real world and to the world at its best. 

Moral truth also falls into a two-fold divi- 
sion. These ideas, as the}' concern God, 
are a catalogue of his various attributes and 
direct knowledge of his disposition. The 
character or disposition of God is the chief 
human interest. Men have asked for bread 
and have been given a stone by all not in 
sympathy with this distinction. The feel- 
ing of the victims of disappointment is, 
71 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

"Away with the sawdust which masks as 
meal; tell me, if you can, how you know a 
God who cares for me." Our Lord sought 
to do just that. His Sermon on the Mount 
has, as its salient feature, the call of men 
to blessedness. Beatitude after beatitude 
form introduction to this statement of Jesus, 
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall 
see God." He has been saying that the 
Kingdom of Heaven is for the humble, com- 
fort for the sad, control of the Earth for the 
spiritual and that satisfaction awaits aspira- 
tion. The merciful find mercy. Then he 
evidently thought, My hearers shall not 
think that I am a sentimentalist, substitut- 
ing confectionery for food. I must proclaim 
that fundamental law of the spiritual realm, 
which underlies every virtue. They must 
not for a moment suppose that these sayings 
of mine are a row of beautiful pearls strung 
on a string of chance association. The fun- 
damental law of all spiritual progress is thus 
given in the introduction to his sermon. By 
purity of moral life comes clarity of moral 
vision. Jesus forsakes the path of the teacher 
72 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

who is content with, conformity to rule. He 
is not even willing to select a virtue from 
any genuine life. He goes deeper and de- 
clares that all advance in the righteousness 
of the Kingdom, is in exact ratio to, and 
absolutely dependent upon, fundamental 
heart quality. All character so won is real, 
divine, and so far as it goes, a vision of 
Deity. The joy of the beatitude consists, 
not so much in the completeness of the 
divine vision, in any given moment and in- 
stance, as in the discovery of the process by 
which we advance. 

Let us examine the pathfinder of the spirit 
and consider its separate elements. First, there 
is receptivity, willingness of mind, openness of 
temper, thorough going honesty, a truth lov- 
ing disposition. The ingenuous spirit is in 
love with reality, whatever its origin. The 
teachable pupil can learn. 

As a youth Jesus had a rare acquaintance 
with the great men of Israel, derived from 
the instruction of his parents, the synagogue 
school at Nazareth, and his reading of the 
"law and the prophets." He drank in the 
73 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

majesty and grandeur of the Old Testament 
literature. With this background of venera- 
tion he was to associate the more filial and 
affectionate qualities. He had, on a very 
much higher plane, the universal element 
suggested in Milton and Dante. Love was 
not mere sentimentality with him, because it 
was set against a background of power. 
With this training came that respect and 
love due to the noble in the past. Those 
who prayed to the God of Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob, stood on a level with the Ameri- 
can who reserves a sacred precinct in his 
soul for the memory of Washington, Sumner 
and Lincoln. If there are those among us 
who have lost, or who have yet to gain re- 
spect for our national heroes, let us trust 
that their number is small. They may pro- 
test that they are not hero-worshippers. And 
how can they be, since they worship them- 
selves? 

It is not contended that a man is never to 

have another chance, because he makes an 

honest, but mistaken endeavor to have the 

scope of the senses greater than their Maker 

74 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

designed. The scientific skeptic does not 
smell with his eye or hear with his tongue, 
however much he may deny in terms the 
possession of a spiritual sight, hearing and 
taste. There is more truth beneath the gibe 
that an "Honest God is the noblest work of 
man," than the skeptic discerns. Blessed is 
the honest man, for he will recognize honesty. 
"Blessed are the pure in heart," for the 
quality of the lens determines the result of 
the observation. This is the only method of 
knowing God. There can be no rational 
objection to it. This Divine method is em- 
ployed when our higher experiences inter- 
pret God. The method is abused when we 
follow the practice of barbaric days, and 
derive ideas of God from our lower experi- 
ences. Real knowledge will be as free as 
possible from the artificial, external and 
purely material sources, 

Again men fear to trust reason, even 
when a servant of the moral sense. They 
have demanded a deposit of grace and author- 
ity, which takes from man all responsibility 
for knowing God or access to him. The 
75 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOB. 

Church, the succeeding representatives of 
an original vicar of Christ, holds a supposed 
deposit, which dispenses with earnest search 
for truth in the spiritual realm. The church- 
man and the agnostic usually agree in giving 
up the problems of the spirit. The church- 
man turns the problem over to the Church. 
The agnostic is prone to give it up as insol- 
uble. Light dawns when we recognize the 
difference between a revelation in and a con- 
veyance to the soul. The knowledge of 
God's character is obtained through our 
higher nature, under the law of growth, and 
on the principle that like understands like. 
With this agrees our study of comparative 
religion and national development. Here is 
the key to the Divine evolution, which in- 
cludes both the Old and New Testament 
histories. The law recurs in a thousand 
changing forms of narrative and parable, 
proverb and song, familiar epistle and drama, 
''Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." 

A second element, involved in this law of 
vision, is the appropriation of the presence 
76 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

of God. This was the habit of select spirits 
before Christ. A noble expression of this 
faith is found in the one hundred and thirty- 
ninth psalm: 

"If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; 

If I make my bed hi the grave, behold, thou art there. 

If I take the wings of the morning, 

And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 

Even there shall thy hand lead me, 

And thy right hand shall hold me." 

If only one be not insulated against God, if 
the heart is not a wilful vacuum, God, who is 
atmospheric, finds conscious residence. So 
also Wordsworth sang in the Lake Country. 

"I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns 

And the round ocean and the living air, 

And the blue sky and the mind of man, 

A motion and a spirit that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought 

And rolls through all things." 

Some here this morning will soon be in 
the mountains or by the shore. We may 
find ourselves on the Gorner Grat where the 
sun, opening the gates of day, gilds the 
Matterhorn with glory. By forest and 
stream, in garden and farm, through moun- 
tain pass, in the gallery of art, by cottage 
77 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

and hedgerow, we can behold the garments 
of God, and discern him who dw T ells just 
within the beautiful in art and nature. 

Still the vision of power comes from with- 
in, not from without, not even from the 
flow r ers and the field. The inner revelation 
is our citadel against the terror of nature, in 
some of her moods. God is in the still small 
voice, not in the storm and avalanche. Eli- 
jah's experience is an epitome of that of the 
race. God does not ignore our mood but 
can meet us on the level of it, and by the exag- 
geration, we are impressed with the contrast- 
ing reality and duty. The soul becomes calm. 
The image of God reflects his presence. God's 
self-expression, "the Word," was gradually 
and continually developing a sense of God 
in man, long before "the Word became 
flesh." The process was adjusted to the idea 
that his children could not conceive of any- 
thing wholly unlike their experience. When 
man seemed be trying to transcend this lim- 
itation, he failed. He made a centaur, half 
man, half beast, fragments of experience 
joined. The early lessons in the lore of 
78 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Divinity found men calling God a lion or 
some strong creature of the jungle. Men 
were children of the chase. Women were 
Amazons of war. Judges were Samsons, 
men of brawn, ancient prize fighters. They 
could interpret the law with the jawbone of 
an ass. Men became pastoral, and God was 
a shepherd. They tilled the soil and God 
was a husbandman. They became wealthy, 
sought strong government and God was a 
king. The arts flourished and they saw the 
King in his beauty, the beauty of holiness. 
The family flourished and God was a Father. 
God is called "Father" six times in the Old 
Testament and three hundred times in the 
New, because our capacity to know God 
increased. We anticipate, then recognize 
the Daysman. Hopes are aroused and rea- 
lized. Prophets and philosophers join in 
asserting necessity for "A God or a God 
inspired man to teach us our religious duties 
and take away the darkness from our eyes." 
He came. God's revelation of his character 
in Jesus Christ was the Word made Flesh. 
God and man are revealed by God in man. 
79 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

Grandeur is carried up to service and sacri- 
fice. Fear, conscience, beauty are born 
again for the race. Still, his own received 
him not. The Jew continued to say that 
God loves only the Jew. The ecclesiastic 
limited God's interest to the church. The 
people of the reformed faith declared God's 
interest confined to the elect. It is now 
pretty well understood that God loves us 
all. 

Luke introduces us to Simon, a Pharisee, 
who invited the Lord to dine. Unbidden 
guests, according to the free ways of the 
Orient, followed the more honored guests, as 
spectators. They sauntered leisurely in the 
open courts and stood by the table couches, 
enjoying the cheer of the feast. As the fes- 
tivities lengthened, the crowd grew. A 
woman, bankrupt in character and reputa- 
tion, stood near the couch where our Lord 
reclined, with his feet turned backward. 
She was near enough to see and be seen. 
She has a partial view of his face and can 
distinctly hear his words. Behold her, wist- 
ful, sad, gazing into vacancy. Perhaps she 
80 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

once had lived in the country and had drifted 
into the city with a caravan. There is some- 
thing in the great guest reminding her of 
the old mountain home. The pure days of 
her happy girlhood come again in day 
dream. Though apparently unconscious of 
her presence, the rich intonation of the 
Lord's voice plays upon her spirit as aeolian 
harp strings touched by invisible fingers. 
She knows that the prophet is not here as a 
guest of love. Curiosity and investigation 
are in the air. The host had neglected the 
common courtesy to guests of providing water 
for the Master's feet. She notes the neglect 
and quietly stoops to remove the dust with 
her hair. Finding the attention welcomed, 
she covers those feet with kisses and with 
ointment, which, had they been those of a 
Pharisee, would have been used to spurn her. 
What impression does this affair make on 
the host? 

"Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he 
spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, 
would have perceived who and what manner of woman this is 
which toucheth him, that she is a sinner. And Jesus, answer- 
ing, said unto him. Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. 
And he saith, Master, say on. A certain lender had two 

81 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOB. 

debtors: the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other 
fifty. When they had not wherewith to pay, he forgave them 
both. Which of them, therefore, will love him most? Simon 
answered and said, He, I suppose, to whom he forgave the 
most. And he said unto him, thou hast rightly judged. And 
turning to the woman, he said unto Simon, Seest thou this 
woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water 
for my feet; but she hath wetted my feet with her tears, and 
wiped them with her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss: but she, 
since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. 
* * Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, 
are forgiven, for she loved much: but to whom little is for- 
given, the same loveth little." 

That which made this incident possible, was 
precisely what made Jesus a prophet. Yea. 
more than a prophet. 

Verily a man can take the Scripture record 
and find all he needs to bring him into 
higher personal relation with God. He needs 
no capital save his own need. He may say 
to himself, I need God. God would be 
Satan to make that need on purpose to dis- 
appoint me. I take the New Testament as 
any other book. It satisfies, by its guidance, 
all the wants of my soul. Therefore, I have 
found God. 

The Holy Spirit has at last abundant ma- 
terial for motive in the life and teachings of 
Christ. With this inspiration our concep- 
tion of the Christ grows from a star to a sun 
82 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

at dawn, and then a mid-day glory. The 
laws of the spiritual realm become more 
clear. The prophet outruns the priest. The 
gown is forgotten because not a badge of 
service but a badge of office. The adjust- 
ment of the Spirit to human life is sublime. 
God takes man where he is and develops 
him. 

The law of gravitation is surely not more 
clear than this fundamental law of Christi- 
anity. Consider Newton beneath an apple- 
tree. He observes an apple, a fact; a falling 
apple, a force. He concludes that any body 
of the same weight, whatever the distance, 
will follow the same law T , the details of which 
he can later work out by experiment. Now 
then, for our food or medicine, as the case 
may be. A good man, a fact; another man 
associating with him finds that he is grow T - 
ing better, in direct ratio to fellowship, a 
force. Let any man do likewise and he will 
gain a like result, a law. Apply the same 
process to religious thought. Jesus the 
good will be found better, the better will 
prove the best, the unique a hand reached 
83 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

down from Heaven, not another guess about 
Heaven. Thus it becomes evident that the 
pure heart is progressive, and in time opens 
all doors of character and religious thought. 
This is the simple and profound solvent for 
the simplest duty of today, and for the spec- 
ulations of the seventh Heaven about the 
eighth. 

But does the man believe correctly about 
everything? Not at all. His practical the- 
ology will improve under that treatment. 
What is theology? Knowledge of God. How 
is it obtained? From the service of God. 
How is the service rendered ? Ity vital rela- 
tions with living men. But how does a man 
know God? Just as he knows his brother, 
except that in the case of God there is no 
bodily and sensuous aid. I know you be- 
cause I have heard you speak. I have seen 
you make a gesture. Performing an act of 
memory, I interpret you. There is one 
thread. Another and another follow, till we 
have woven the warp and woof of friend- 
ship. 

God is truth carried up by faith, persoiii- 
84 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 
fled and then brought down in sympathy. 
How do we get this truth? The Jew said by 
study. But Christ said act. Train the 
will and the affections, then will the mind 
become clarified. 

"Ye search the Scriptures, because in them ye think ye 
have eternal life, and they are they which testify concerning 
Me, but ye will not come to Me that ye might have life." 

How shall we know the qualities of the 
Christ? On sight. This is a sight draft. Is 
the flower beautiful? Hold it up. Would 
you prove that the symphony is sweet? Play 
it. 

Third — The Spirit of God helps our prog- 
ress, disclosing himself to us in our human 
service. This is eminently the age of hu- 
manity. We are discovering the humanity 
of God and the dignity of man. Over the 
door of one of the buildings belonging to 
Glasgow University, a few years ago one 
might have seen the words, "The Humani- 
ties." At the beginning of the revival of 
learning, that chair stood for Latin, one of 
the first concessions for general study. Now 
we have compulsory education for humanity. 
85 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOB. 

In America we put a school house where 
feudalism put a castle. The best literature 
at one's own price is sown broadcast. Near- 
ly two hundred editions, not reprints, of the 
works of Robert Burns have appeared during 
the last one hundred years. Why this de- 
mand? The secret largely lies in the lines, 

"For a' that an' a' that 
It's coming yet, for a' that 
That man to man the world o'er 
Shall brithers be for a" that." 

This is only another form of "Inasmuch as ye 
did it unto one of these, my brethren, even 
these least, ye did it unto me." This spirit 
is that which forecasts our destiny. It will 
make every heart a temple, every home a 
Bethany, every land a holy land, every 
stream a Jordan, every good a sacrament and 
every benefactor a missionary. The phrase 
"foreign missionary" is unfortunate. What 
are called "foreign missions" constitute a 
vast human movement. The goal is nothing 
alien to man, but includes every creature. 
America, like Israel, is an elect nation to 
elect the world. The spirit of God is the 
Holy Spirit because he has undertaken the 
86 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 

emancipation of Humanity. The secular is 
sacred. Sects surrender their hatreds to the 
coming Kingdom of Love. Who is there 
even now who will volunteer to number the 
cloud of witnesses? 

Christianity, as never before, is inspiring 
science and art. Music, poetry, painting, 
sculpture are freer, since the highest themes 
are Christian. The modern city is the nerve 
center. Every live man feels the pulse and 
throb of its life. The thickest of the fight is 
not far to find. For all there is a hard 
fought field at hand. About the issue, there 
can be no doubt. The race is redeemed. 
We are not the "just made perfect," but 
there is an availing struggle for justice. 
About us are the signs of a conflict not 
soon to end for society. It is the finest of 
the fine arts to learn how to live together, 
with malice toward none, and justice for all. 
There is to be no partiality or respect of 
persons. Justice has her eyes of prejudice 
blindfolded while she holds the scales. 
Better laws, recognizing that disputes have 
two sides in the matter of the rights of labor 
87 



KNOWLEDGE OF GOB. 

and capital, are sure to find enforcement and 
result in public protection. Neither labor 
union or trust can be a law unto itself. It is 
not simply a question which of two dispu- 
tants is right in any contest. There is the 
profounder fact that we are all bound to- 
gether in a vast human ascent. Individuals 
are summoned aside, but the militant king- 
dom abides, perennial, prevailing. 

We shall soon hear the summons, as indi- 
viduals, to throng the steps of light. Past the 
flashing gates, we can go with ten thousand 
times ten thousand,rejoicingtofind Humanity 
saved indeed. There one vision of our Lord, 
now revealing his goodness and veiling his 
glory, will justify all cost, and instant wel- 
come will be endless joy. 



88 



IV. 

THE VALUE OF MAN. 



"But the conception of man has changed as well as that of 
God. We may without extravagance say that man had never 
come by his rights in religion; for either, when God was great 
and of infinite majesty he had been humbled into the dust; or, 
where God was very terrible he had been degraded into an in- 
strument that could be broken and cast away, or depraved 
into a coward who would offer the fruit of his body for the sin 
of his soul; or, where God was complaisant, he had taken him 
into his own hands and done with him as he pleased. To find 
a fit relation or a seeming equilibrium between God and man 
is a thing hard enough to be esteemed impossible, yet this 
was what Christ achieved. He made man stand upright before 
God, conscious of his dignity. It does not become a being of 
infinite promise to lie prone in the dust, even before the In- 
finite Majesty. To feel what it is to be the Eternal Father's 
son, is to learn to behave as a son, possessed of his privileges 
as well as bound by his duties; and it is also to feel that all 
sons are equal in their potential, though not perhaps in their 
realized worth. Hence, the Christian idea created two novel 
notions as to man: the value of the unit and the unity of the 
race.'-'— Andrew Martin Fairbairn, D. D. L. L. D. The Philoso- 
phy of the Christian Religion, p. 5hk. 

"It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter 
into God's own deep reverence for the person, in the recogni- 
tion of man's divinely given individuality, as well as through 
failure to recognize the essential likemindedness of men, we 
have been shutting the door of hope, where God has not shut 
it, and have limited beyond warrant the divine mercy. Even 
in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike. "Who art thou 
that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he stand- 
eth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the I,ord 
hath power to make him stand." — Rev. Henry Churchill King, 
D, D., Theology and the Social Consciousness, p. p. 2U5-2U6. 



IV. 
THE VALUE OF MAN, 



What is man, that thou art mindful of him? 
And the son of man that thou visitest him ? 
For thou hast made him but little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory and honour. 

R. V. Ps. 8: 4, 5. 



The: psalmist's song is about man's dig- 
nity. He sees the dawn of the day of man's 
power over all nature. The consciousness 
of being a man, not a sheep or an ox or a 
beast of the field or some creature of the 
ocean, wakes the poet's heart. He sees 
man as the king of the earth. He wears a 
crown placed on him by the King of kings. 
Nature is subject to him, as he himself is 
subject only to God. He is no menial sub- 
ordinate, but one honored in rank and re- 
sponsibility. He is made but little lower 
than God, and crowned with glory and 
91 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

honor. A true sense of his dignity as a man, 
leads the poet, up from thought of himself, 
to the adoration of God, saying, "Oh Lord, 
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all 
the earth." 

The singer of this old song had a good 
idea of man's supremacy over sheep and 
oxen, the finny tribe and the fowl of the 
air, but with how much more inspiration 
could he invoke his muse today. Franklin 
has put the lightning in our hands. Steven- 
son has given us the locomotive. Whitney 
left the legacy of the cotton gin. Modern 
life is rich with ten thousand inventors and 
inventions. Man's increase of dominion 
over the forces of nature has no assignable 
limit. He began with the simple contract of 
naming a few of the larger animals, proba- 
bly on the ding dong theory of the sound they 
were heard to make, so that they may be 
said almost to have named themselves. 
Now the makers of dictionaries, with all 
their enterprise, cannot keep pace with 
science. What was absurd yesterday is the 
attainment of today, Opacity is conquered. 
92 



THE VALUE OF HAN. 

That clever little "fowl of the air," whom 
the psalmist may have seen putting his ear 
to a tree to listen for its prey, is surpassed 
by the cathode ray revealing the worm. 
The hawk, with keen vision, discovers a dis- 
tant object, where man's unaided eye fails, 
but man invents the telescope which brings 
nigh the very stars. 

Mastery of nature, by the supremacy of 
mind, is but the beginning of wonders. All 
attainments, brilliant as they are, and the 
half has not been hinted, are child's play to 
the service that they are destined to render 
to the spiritual nature. God has given man 
a conscience as well as brains. The dignity 
of man is seen in the part which conscience 
plays in history. The early promise of pros- 
perity to the nation keeping the moral law, 
can be traced in all the happier fortunes of 
man. Penalties have sometimes been de- 
layed. The full reward has not been imme- 
diate. God has been patient and deliberate. 
Prosperous nations will discover that their 
prosperity rests on their obedience to the 
moral law. 

93 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

The nations of antiquity might have main- 
tained some degree of undisturbed barbar- 
ism, but for the low ambition of their kings. 
Given over to conquest and luxury, they fell 
a prey to their own vice. Egypt, Chaldea, 
Assyria, Persia, Israel, Greece, Rome, tot- 
tered and fell. Over their grave is written 
one concise epitaph: "The name of the 
wicked shall rot." Wealth, law, art, culture 
could not save them as nations. The moral 
dignity of man is held before us by the lives 
of men, whom the world calls prophets. 
These men were not chiefly remarkable for 
prediction. They did not become prophets 
by ecclesiastical method or palmistry. They 
recognized the moral law as the voice of 
God, and obeyed the voice. They were 
often able to say things which others only 
saw. They differed among themselves, as 
star from star, but their glory was not essen- 
tially different from that of any man who is 
really trying to hear the word of God in his 
soul. We are slow to realize this idea, but 
it is getting quite a strong hold upon the 
world. 

94 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

When a given national life rises high 
enough, their poets rank among the proph- 
ets. We find it hard to make a distinct and 
distant order which leaves out of the proph- 
etic roll great modern men. They do not 
get nearer God or man, by supposing that 
Isaiah, David, Jeremiah and others, belong 
to another order of being. The author of 
Job has given us the sunshine and shadow 
of his own sublimely human experience. It 
is more than likely that he was one, who 
was more than his property, stronger than 
his enemies and true to his God. There is 
great gain for humanity, when it is discover- 
ed, that not all the major prophets are in the 
Bible, nor all the minor prophets out of it. 
What reality life has, when one begins to 
really believe that all the prophets were not 
Hebrews. Every man is a prophet in his 
degree. If he can understand Isaiah, there 
must be something in common. Inspiration 
admits of degree. Religious instruction is 
founded on experience. The world for some- 
time yet, will go on repeating its old delu- 
sion that mankind is divided into prophets, 
95 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

priests, kings and common folks. In the 
beginning it was not so. It will not be so at 
last. Every man's dignity will be seen to 
contain these three sacred functions. He 
will be a prophet, because he has put moral 
truth into practice. He will be a priest, 
because any man who practices righteous- 
ness, is a medium of help to his brother. 
He will be a king, because there is no other 
essential royalty than to be a true man, and 
to be a true man one must have that royalty 
which man's maker inspires. 

Additional gifts will be cause for thanks- 
giving, but they find honor only when their 
possessors recognize their duty to mankind. 
That fine quotation from the German poet, 
that exquisite song, that handsome face, 
those jewels, that dividend you wish to de- 
clare, that raise of salary, that office in the 
gift of the people, are all nothing, unless 
founded on a paramount and dominant pur- 
pose to promote the highest welfare of all 
men. They can luridly reveal the life you 
might have led. They may sadly disclose 
the crumbling glory of a great nature. The 
96 



THE VAL UE OF MAN 

dignity of man, like the former beauty of an 
old abbey, is often seen in its ruins. The 
treacherous mantling ivy of vanity fastening 
on the old castle wall, will drag it down to 
the very earth, unless some lover of the 
beautiful makes a speedy restoration. For 
every diamond a woman wears, let her wear 
ten diamonds in her soul. We may not 
neglect a proper attention to the exterior, 
but one can in the moral sphere far more 
readily than in the sphere of household taste, 
put a ten cent picture in a ten dollar frame. 
A sincere popular preacher, who lives first 
and preaches second, or rather preaches by 
his whole life, may show occasional crudity 
of expression, but this all must grant, that 
he does not fall into the worse error of a false 
heart content with animated art for art's 
sake. 

The special testimony of Scripture is every- 
where for the great value of the soul. The 
Book of Beginnings declares man made in the 
image of God. Moses sees a great future in 
a nation of slaves. He conceived the idea 
that all the Lord's people may have the 
97 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

hidden gift of prophecy. Observe this ray 
of light from the times of barbarism. 

"And there ran a young man, and told 
Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do 
prophesy in the camp. And Joshua, the son 
of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his 
young men answered and said, My Lord 
Moses, forbid them! And Moses said unto 
him, Knviest thou for my sake? Would God 
that all the Lord's people were prophets, 
and that the Lord would put his spirit upon 
them." Isaiah, feeling that men were losing 
self-respect in abject confession and on con- 
stantly bended knees of sin-consciousness 
and spiritual pauperism calls out in the 
name of the Lord, "Stand upon thy feet and 
I will speak to thee." In the book of Job, 
we are told that "There is a spirit in man 
and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth 
him understanding." In the Proverbs w 7 e 
are informed that "The spirit of man is the 
candle of the Lord." Passing on to the 
words of Christ we detect the same vein 
cropping out in his treatment of the child. 
The very babes, which, political economy of 
98 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

the selfish order must decide to be a burden, 
have a divine dignity. This little non-pro- 
ducer is the germ of a great soul. We have 
often read the passage which contains the 
statement that it were better that a mill- 
stone be hung around a man's neck, and 
that he be drowned in the sea, than that he 
should cause a little child to stumble. The 
King James translation is very mild. The 
following is nearer to the original. It were 
better that no ordinary mill-stone, such as 
can be turned by hand, but one so heavy 
that it would require an ass to turn it, be 
hanged about the neck, and that such one 
were drowned, not in ordinarily deep water, 
but far out and away in the ocean's depth. 
That is a matter to keep in mind at the 
spring election, if we believe that tem- 
perance and other questions have to do with 
the welfare of our children and youth. 

On the other hand there is the far more 
important truth that our lives are not made 
by laws. Our youth are to become heroes, 
not b\* removing temptation so much as em- 
powering them to overcome it. The main em- 
99 

LofC. 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

phasis is on the ability, nobility and knight- 
hood of Christian manliness. The inciden- 
tal and inevitable stress is on sweeter man- 
ners and purer laws and protection for the 
weak who have been saved from sentimental- 
ism and the disposition to charge their sins 
upon their circumstances rather than to 
themselves. 

The Jewish authorities denied the right of 
Christ to teach them. He was accustomed 
to give the laws of Moses a larger meaning 
than was acceptable to the rabbis. They 
challenged him on a certain sabbath, accus- 
ing him of breaking the sabbath law, by al- 
lowing the disciples to thrash wheat. The 
offense was robbing the kernels out of chaff 
as they passed through a field of grain, 
plucking the heads and eating as they 
walked. 

"But said he unto them, have ye not read 
what David did when he was hungred, and 
they that were with him; how he entered the 
house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, 
which was not lawful for him to eat, neither 
for them that were him, but only for the 
100 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

priests? Or have ye not read in the Law, 
how that on the sabbath days, the priests in 
the temple profane the sabbath and are 
blameless ? But I say unto you, that in this 
place is one greater than the temple." 

How clearly is here set forth the appeal of 
Jesus from all externalism to the intrinsic 
worth of the soul. Nothing has value in it- 
self. No temple, picture, marble, drama, 
essay. All must kneel to the shrine of hu- 
man benefit. The member is not for the 
church, the ordinance or the creed or the 
sabbath day, but all are for him. The little 
child is greater than all the temples and 
altars and holy implements. 

Whenever art has supplemented nature, 
it's success consists in its value to men. It 
is not in aD} T of its many departments an end 
in itself, but stands or falls before the ques- 
tion, does it benefit man? The most admir- 
able art can not find an end in itself. That 
surpassing structure of antiquity, the temple 
of Herod, combined excellence of finish, 
richness of decoration, stability of structure, 
grandeur of impression. All the world had 
101 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

contributed to that splendor. With all the 
glory of race associations the temple stood 
surrounded and filled with men who were 
proud to live for it, to rehearse its laws and 
traditions. It was the incarnation of all the 
Jew held dear. Approaching Jerusalem in 
the morning from the east, the temple stood 
pure white and radiant in the sun. And 
small wonder that a building surpassing the 
Greek Acropolis, should occupy so high a 
place in the mind of a nation bound up with 
the memories of ages past, and sacred pro- 
phecies for ages to come. Nevertheless 
Christ said " In this place," that is in this 
wheat-field, "is one greater than the tem- 
ple." Wherever there is any work of right- 
eousness, mercy and justice, in the wheat- 
field, the blacksmith shop, the dairy, the 
hospital, the street car, the kitchen or the 
parlor there is liberty. The deed gives 
value to the day. He struck this staggering 
blow for the dignity and liberty of his dis- 
ciples. All external to the soul receives im- 
portance from its serving power. Above all 
forms, organizations, observances, sacra- 
102 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

merits, stands man, the individual man. 
The Jew reversed this Divine order. He 
thought on new moons and feasts. Christ 
thought of man. He thought of man as 
walking beneath the smile of God, reaching 
out on every side and commanding the ser- 
vice of everything which can aid the ascent 
of man. If on the way up the steep there is 
a temple, the Bible, a prayer book, a sermon, 
a meeting that can help us, we use it. The 
value of church organization is in itself 
nothing. Instrumentally it may be invalua- 
ble. It is not something to join or be lost, 
not a chain to restrain our liberties. It may 
be a hammer to break our chains. It is not 
an institution to block out all our time, but 
an inspiration aiding us to block it out our- 
selves. Man is greater than any sacrament 
or custom. A church ceases to be Christian 
when it ceases to defend Christian liberty. 

The church can not serve man if it turns 
into a club. All that is human must have a 
fascination for the church of Jesus Christ. 
Hxclusiveness and pride have no place in 
the centre aisle, because the centre of the 
103 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

kingdom is full of human feeling for human 
need. There is danger when we talk in a 
pleasant room full of well-clothed, welf-fed, 
well-to-do people about love to man, that 
they will say, "Certainly we do love man. 
Do we not provide a church, a Sunday 
school, pleasant rooms for man ? Do we not 
have ushers to show them seats and do we 
not have suppers and socials? " This is all 
easy, provided the man behaves himself and 
has ten cents or more. Take a real test. 
Here stands a man in ragged clothing. He 
has an unclean and disorderly appearance. 
You shrink. You dread contamination. 
You love clean and pure men. But stop ! 
You are in the presence of a man. He is a 
son of God. Tread softly. Stand back in 
deference. What slumbering powers are in 
him? What may the interior of the man 
even now prove to be ? What is his history? 
What is his ancestry? What are his sur- 
roundings ? It is the narrow, selfish and ig- 
norant man who scoffs at any man. Jesus 
Christ spoke in great severity to some men, 
but never spoke in scorn ! The only thing 
104 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

he scorned was scorn itself, and those whom 
he chided most were chided for contempt of 
men. In the first chapter of the book of 
Revelation, the author, after calling Jesus 
Christ "the faithful witness," "the first be- 
gotten of the dead," "the prince of the 
kings of the earth," practically dedicates 
the work to "Him that loved us and washed 
us (the order is significant) from our sins in 
his own blood, and hath made us kings and 
priests unto God and his Father, to Him be 
glory and dominion forever and ever, 
Amen." Redemption thus completes crea- 
tion. The testimony is uniform. The 
Bible begins, continues and ends with one 
consistent, sublime teaching on the value of 
the soul. 

We may now consider several things which 
are involved in this view of man. 

First, the saving forces of the world are 
moral forces. Without moral force man 
lapses to the range of the beast. The nations 
which lead civilization today, do so in exact 
ratio to their moral development. The no- 
bility of man is seen where this nature has 
105 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

its freest and fullest opportunity. The na- 
tions which had least sympathy for the 
Greek as against the Turk, are those nations 
where the people have the least to say in af- 
fairs of the government, Russia, Germany 
and Austria. Those whose moral sympathies 
restrained them from violence against the 
Greeks, are the nations where the rights and 
duties of men have had most increasing re- 
spect, Great Britain, France and Italy. 
France found it hard to take the right side in 
our war with Spain, but Britain remained 
true and in a crisis there would have been 
others to stand for the right. This, with the 
added ideas that no nation is left without its 
democratic witness, and no emperor repre- 
sents the best in his empire, will afford us 
hope for human weal in either the avoidance 
or issue of war. In every European crisis 
we have the sad spectacle of rulers opposing 
the desire and welfare of the people. Hu- 
manity is at a disadvantage, but it is not to 
forever remain in a condition hostile to its 
own interest. Surroundings favorable to 
selfishness and greed may have their own 
106 



THE YAL UE OF MAN 

way toda}^ but not tomorrow. Character 
suffers and gains by surroundings, but is 
quite superior to them. The thrones of Eu- 
rope shake more from fear of the people than 
from fear of disturbing the balance of power 
among rulers. The nations that have dis- 
covered man, hold the real ascendency. The 
The iron monsters that sail the deep must 
defend the weak against the strong. The 
history of civilization is the history of the 
conversion of power. Whenever power is 
being used to serve the interests of a few at 
the expense of many, the blood of Abel cries 
out for judgment, and God is not deaf. In 
every great srruggle for human rights, noth- 
ing quite so clearly reveals the type of man- 
hood as the side which one takes. If he 
sides with the strong against the weak he 
sides against God. 

Second, let us never give a man up, how- 
ever desperate his case. The estimate of 
man's dignity grows with his own growth. 
We can not remind ourselves too often of 
that large charity due souls under infinitely 
varied and trying conditions. It is the mis- 
107 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

fortune of many to have spent most of their 
life in contact with narrow, weak and mean 
types of men. The answer they give to the 
question, "What do you think of man?" is 
quite different from that of those who have 
all their days lived among large-hearted and 
generous spirits. It is not within the power 
of man, to entirely transcend his surround- 
ings. He is the child of his age, his nation, 
his climate, his educational advantages. But 
within quite large limits, his freedom to 
choose and control is a guarded gift of God. 
Within these confines, "where there is a will 
there is a way." With such there are no 
evil stars. No defeat overtakes them but it 
is turned into victory. It is said that George 
Washington lost more battles than he won. 
His genius lay in organizing success out of 
defeat. When his foes thought that they 
were managing him, he was managing them. 
He was a fighter from his ancestors. The 
very stars in our flag are taken from the com- 
mon origin of the rowel pointed spurs in a 
family coat-of-arms, but they shine with a 
worth that makes us proud of our country 
108 



THE VAL UE OF MAN. 

and our race. The trouble with the world 
is not that it fights, but that it fights on the 
wrong side, at the wrong time, for wrong 
ends and with the wrong spirit. The Lord 
declared that he came, not to send peace but 
a sword, and advised the disciples to carry a 
sword. "He that hath no sword let him sell 
his garment and buy one." ''And they said 
Lord, behold, here are two swords. And he 
said unto them, It is enough." 

Lastly, the dignity of man is vindicated in 
the Son of Man. He revealed humanity at 
its best. As the best humanity he fulfilled 
the ethical conditions for a Divine self-reve- 
lation. The value of man cannot be abso- 
lutely appraised by the best man, unless that 
best man also has a unique and Divine quality 
which transcends humanity. God and man 
are kin, but we are brought to the realiza- 
tion of this fact by the supernatural element. 
This is not less true because we have a right 
to broaden our ideas of the supernatural to 
include the supersensuous. The fundamen- 
tal dignity of man consists with the absence 
of any natural gulf between him and God. 
109 






THE VALUE OF MAN. 

Jesus brings this fact into clearer social con- 
sciousness. Religion with him has a sanity 
of symmetry and an inspiration to live. He 
answers all the great questions of the human 
heart. Who is God? What is man? Why 
do we live? W 7 hither go we? We are in- 
structed by the record of his teachings, not 
in metaphysics, not with bewildering detail, 
but by the fundamentals needed for our de- 
velopment. These facts are not made so 
clear that the}^ can not be doubted. Our 
character depends on the power to doubt, 
the danger of a fall, the uuobtrusiveness of 
God's Providence, the unfettered will, the 
power to change our minds and train our af- 
fections. 

God sends many prophets, though but one 
Eldest Brother. When the messages of all 
the prophets are united and made alive, they 
will still require, for the explanation of their 
unity and life, that unique life which antici- 
pated the highest evolution of humanism. 
In the Son of Man we find the universal 
man, who is the pledge and potency by which 
each individual and each individual faculty 
110 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

reach a final goal in the fullness of Chris- 
tian manhood and social transfiguration, the 
Utopia of the Kingdom of God. 

Our estimate of a man depends on what 
we are willing to let our estimate cost us. 
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friends. ' ' Jesus 
set an infinite value upon each member of 
the human race, because his death w T as the 
expression of God's love for every man as a 
child of God. Others have this idea now, 
but it was original with Jesus as the one who 
reveals God, and therefore, the reality and 
not the mere possibility of our sonship and 
brotherhood is signified. 

No doubt God is the only being capable 
of anticipating man's true nature. His re- 
bukes are real, terrible because merciful. 
There are no threats. The greater the na- 
ture, the greater the shadows of its fall 
and peril. With such a constitution, w T ith 
God clothing us, his children, with a majestic 
nature, holding before us all conceivable in- 
ducements to live worthily of our high call- 
ing, how is it possible for us to sell our birth- 
Ill 



THE VALUE OF MAN. 

right for a song or count ourselves strangers 
to the valuation made by the cross of Christ. 
As the soldiers contested for his robe, so 
the theologians have fought for the philoso- 
phy of the cross. The robe was without 
seam, but the theologies have been full of 
seams. The great idea of salvation is that 
Jesus Christ came to release men from slavery, 
to disengage Divine forces resident in the 
race, by which each person might rise to a 
full development. The cross is the accident 
which reveals the essential. The love of God 
met the free will of man in the time-server 
and did not prevent the consequences which 
would have occured had the object of their 
hatred been any other man. But the will- 
ingness to suffer and to wait, till love is 
stronger than force, till all veils are rent and 
garments have no seams, till men shall strive 
with one another to provoke to good works, 
this is the nature of God. "Put ye in the 
Lord Jesus Christ," then you will have veri- 
fied the Divine estimate of your own soul and 
by inference that of all men. 



112 



V. 

WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 



"We define criticism, therefore, as that mental process in 
modern Christianity whereby the historic character, the true 
nature, of divine revelation is appreciated and manifested. 
* * And to study the Bible critically is to assert its right to 
be understood, to be taken in its own sense.'*— Henry 8. Nash, 
TJie History of the Higher Criticism of the New Testament, 
pp. 1U-15. 

"The Bible, then, is safe, both in the greater moral trial and 
in the slighter intellectual, because Christ is in it. Behind the 
New Testament is his Divine Person, and if, as I believe, the 
author of the Fourth Gospel is right, behind the Old Testa, 
ment, back of the life of historic humanity, beyond the dim 
beginnings of our race upon this planet. Not upon literature, 
composed although it is of inimitable biography, wonderful 
history, unapproachable Psalm and prophecy, rests our be- 
lief; not in a record of a divine ministry, made up as it is of 
priceless evangelical narrative and glowing epistle, stands 
our faith, but upon the Spirit that produced these, upon the 
Person who did the works, who brought into existence the 
facts, and who revealed the eternal moral order of God of 
which the Testaments, Old and New, are but an incomplete 
version." — Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., The Christ of To-day, 
pp. 165-166. 

"Man are crying lo here ! and lo there ! We must find the 
source of authority in an inerrant Book, or in an enlightened 
reason or in au infallible Church, or perhaps all three; as if 
there could be three sources of one anthority, or as if a 
channel could ever be rightly called a source. Let us not 
hesitate to pass through this confusion of tongues and of ideas, 
serene and untroubled, with the message of a more excellent 
way. Christ is the Light of all Scripture. Christ is the 
Master of holy reason. Christ is the sole Lord and life of the 
true Church."— Henry Van Dyke, D.D., The Gospel For an Age 
of Doubt, pp. 198-199. 



V. 
WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 



"Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself 
to this chariot. And Philip ran thither to him, and heard 
hirn read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou 
what thou readest? And he said, How can I, except some 
man should guide me?" Acts VIII: 29-31. 



The Bible never had so much attention 
paid to it as it has to-day. There is no 
body of literature which deserves so much 
attention at the hands of a scientific and 
busy age like ours. This literature outlines 
a majestic movement more fascinating, to the 
student who loves his fellow men, than any 
other movement in the history of the globe. 

From the beginning to the end of this 
collection of writings, called a book, but 
really sixty-six, there may be discovered one 
common thread in the warp, the thread of 
love. Sometimes it is God's love for man, 
115 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

sometimes it is man's love for God and again 
man's love for man. Whatever the period, 
whatever the group of writings, this thread 
of gold is found from first to last. This is 
the strongest of the threads that bind the 
books together. If we should bind every 
book separately, as we sometimes do, no 
amount of separation could obliterate this 
central fact, which accounts for their long 
association under one cover. Whatever 
criticism of the Bible may do or may not do, 
it can only bring out into more striking relief 
this message of love. As regards the great 
duty of love, the wayfaring man, though a 
fool, can not err therein. 

It is true that the intelligent reader of the 
Bible, who yet is no scholar, can obtain a 
great deal of information beside the emphasis 
of the universal law of love. There is cer- 
tainly a constantly increasing tax laid upon 
men to understand the Bible, as other sub- 
jects occur in the literature that constitute 
the setting of that great principle which ful- 
fills the law. It is this difficulty which 
accounts for the fact, that the Bible was so 
116 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

long a closed book, even after the discovery 
of movable type. It is very largely a closed 
book now. This is further due to the fact 
that men have been so anxious to have a 
ready, external authority to settle all sorts ot 
questions and controversies, that they have 
insisted that the Bible is inspired of God for 
that very object. 

It is instructive first to recall the varieties 
of literary form which this library contains. 
There are poems and parables. There are 
several kinds of poetry, lyric, epic, dramatic. 
We have genealogy, annals and history. 
Laws appear both as principles and Hebrew 
statutes. Here is a body of practical political 
economy in the form of proverbs. There are 
love songs, the idyls which tell the old sweet 
story of the heart. Besides all this, theology, 
philosophy, correspondence, biography, fic- 
tion and prophecy help to make one grand 
chorus. The participants in this oratorio 
wear varied clothing soiled by their journey. 
Their ideas are contradictory. Sometimes 
the} 7 are right, sometimes wrong and ever 
fallible and partial, but their key-note and 
117 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

symphony is love. It appears in the low and 
far away plaint of the minstrel, pleading his 
righteousness in the dark shadow of a fear 
that he has heard his God in the thunder, 
and ends in the hallelujahs of those standing 
uncounted in white. 

The fact now appears, that the Bible is not 
a message from God, like a letter from a 
father to his son at college. It is something 
better. Men have ever craved some easy 
going substitute for labor. In tropical 
climates, where men pick their living off the 
trees, the nations have remained in the in- 
fancy of civilization. When the time came 
for some higher development, God has pro- 
vided for more stimulating surroundings 
which would tax their self-reliance. He led 
the Israelites into the wilderness of Sinai, 
the Pilgrims into the wilderness of Cape Cod. 
In the historical period of the Bible, and in 
the lessons found in the whole course of 
every national history, God follows one con- 
sistent rule, of throwing us as far as possible 
upon our own resources. The Bible is not a 
mint, where we gather the current coin of the 
118 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

realm, to be had onty for the asking. It is 
a mine in which we are to dig or beg. The 
ore is to be smelted. We are not to stultify 
ourselves by calling the crude ore, refined 
metal. In this, as in all other things we gain 
success by most diligent and life-long ap- 
plication. A man who starts out saying, 
The Bible is a good thing, I must be religious 
and read my Bible a little, opening at random, 
will make a failure. He is like a ten } T ear 
old boy in London setting out at midnight to 
find the King. He is likely to strike the 
genealogical tables, or the visions of Daniel, 
or the Song of Solomon. He will often get 
harm as well as good, for he will shut up the 
book thinking he is pious because he has 
read the Bible. The Bible is like an ency- 
clopedia, if not strictly one itself . One needs 
to know what he needs, to use it to best ad- 
vantage. He needs to learn where that 
which his condition requires is to be found. 
He will then turn to it, with profit and 
pleasure. The fifteen pound, dust-covered 
family Bible, in the dark parlor, is not used 
because when people needed comfort, and 
119 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

went to the book under a false theory and 
did not find at once what they needed, they 
ceased going. 

They will not give up, so easily, when the 
truth conies to them that the book was 
written by forty or fifty different writers, who 
did their work independently, none of them 
dreaming that their writings would form a 
part of a collection of books, dealing with the 
social and religious development of man. 
They will face the new problem. The pains 
required will not discourage them. 

"Yea ! if thou criest after knowledge, and 
liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou 
seekest her as silver and searchest for her as 
for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand 
the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge 
of God. ' ' Instead of being stumbled by some 
hard and cruel utterance, which is arbitrary 
and relative, having explanation in the 
writer's infirmity and limited point of view, 
they come back from their despair, to the 
study of the Scriptures, as those who have 
found great spoil. 

It is often forgotten that inspiration is 
120 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

compatible with fallibility. On the verbal 
theory of inspiration, one passage would re- 
quire a very astute treatment by a commen- 
tator holding that theory, "The letter killeth, 
but the spirit giveth life." What had the 
apostle in mind in saying that the letter kills, 
that inspiration is compatible with fallibility ? 
It is not understood that God's only conceiv- 
able method of revelation must keep pace with 
human limitations, use the weak symbols of 
human speech and employ prophets whose 
vision is largely limited by their own age. 
Each human writing, whatever its Divine 
content, must mark some stage of the process 
by which each person and nation is developed 
from within out. Since even the letter killeth 
when perfect, how Divine is the Providence 
which makes the letter imperfect, in order 
that we may be the less tempted to depend on 
the letter. 

Every book has a face, character and life 
of its own. We meet one of them and 
acquaintance begins. We ask and get 
answers to such questions as the following : 
W 7 ho wrote you ? When were you written ? 
121 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

Where? For whom? For what intent? 
What is local and what universal in your 
teaching ? Thoroughly to understand the 
Bible, one needs to know nearly ever} 7 thing 
that is outside the Bible. To thoroughly 
understand what is outside of the Bible, one 
needs to know what is inside of it. Back of 
the World's Bible, is God's first volume of a 
revelation which includes the preparatory 
education of the race with God as instructor. 
We see more clearly and grasp with a more 
intelligent faith, the distinctive revelation 
made through any given form of this litera- 
ture, when we approach it through a mastery 
of the earlier development. We see the debt 
of each writer to nature, to conscience, to old 
libraries, to the ages of struggle, which are 
represented in man's aspiration toward the 
ultimate satisfaction of his soul. In an age 
of doubt, and wide-spread secularity, it may 
seem like a profanation to say that the 
prophets were men of like sorrows and 
passions with us. The fresh interest which 
the Bible has, is coming to us from the dis- 
covery that God's inspiration adjusts itself to 
122 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

human error and need by speaking through 
men who are themselves also "compassed 
with infirmity." In thus adapting Himself 
to fallible men, and deigning to employ 
human peculiarities, of thought, tempera- 
ment and limitations, a method is used which 
is in complete keeping with the Gospel idea 
itself, love striving with the unthankful and 
those who are ignorant and out of the Avay. 
The Holy Spirit is found to be not an im- 
personal, mechanical force, carrying us to 
shrines, altars and books, but God in the 
soul, speaking through the partial materials 
of our limited experience. 

The phrase, "Word of God," as found in 
the Bible, will have new meaning for us, 
when we find it in use before the Bible 
existed. The message of God is in the souls 
of men. Sometimes men reduce this message 
to writing, sometimes they do not. The best 
things were never written. These men of the 
Bible, separated at the extremes by fifteen 
hundred years, who sang, who acted, who 
spake, did all as they were moved by the 
Holy Spirit. If they wrote they had all the 
123 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

preparation necessary. If infallibility had 
been necessary, that would have appeared. 

The Divine inspiration is more rational 
than that of the sibyl. No peculiar mystery 
or spell, which is not the legitimate off-spring 
of truth, is claimed. Inspiration, on the 
contrary, is in perfect harmony with a 
literature which takes its rise and form under 
the common failings of human symbols and 
immaturity. How mechanical and wooden 
is that sort of inspiration which makes the 
Bible a monograph. A pretended revelation 
might be written by one man, and written 
with great care, so that all superficial points 
might betray no contradiction. A real revela- 
tion is imbedded deeply in the progress out 
of all that is conflicting and struggling and 
weighed down with error. 

The glory of the Bible is, that it partly 
registers the progress of God's people as they 
advanced under His inspiration. L,ike the 
new invention, commonly known as the 
biograph, we have so many means of taking 
photographs, so many pictures of ancient 
Jewish life preserved, that we can make the 
124 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

men of God to live again and walk in their 
habit, as they were. We see that they did as 
we are learning to do. They did not abandon 
their idea of inspiration, because they wished 
to incorporate into their literary work any 
existing records regarded by the writer as 
trustworthy. In his hymn of creation, the 
editor might use materials which other 
national records show to be a common stock 
of tradition. 

Inspiration, man breathing in the breath 
of God, begins at the beginning of things. 
The Bible marks an epoch in the history of 
the globe. Fifteen hundred years of Bible- 
making seems a long time, relative to the 
unity of the literature, but it is no more to 
the history of the planet, than fifteen minutes 
to the life of an average man. At the begin- 
ning of Genesis we find one God asserted as 
behind and in all phenomena. The books of 
the Bible are snap shots taken at long inter- 
vals in the life of a single people. They have 
the truth of photographs. Situations are 
described. Neither favorable nor unfavor- 
able criticism is advanced. If there is any- 
125 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

where an endorsement of a course inconsistent 
with true righteousness, this is readily refer- 
able to the limitations of the age in which 
the writer lived. The pertinent query is, 
1 ' Would you have done as well in his place ?' ' 

Truth does not spring full grown from the 
brain of God. It passes, through stages of 
partial disclosure, toward a perfect growth. 

The Bible is not a purely human book, be- 
cause it contains the accounts of men who 
speak messages for God which take color 
from passing through the faulty human 
medium. It is true that many a man has said 
to another, Thus saith the Lord, when the 
Lord did not say any such thing. A writer 
may write, Thus saith the Lord, without in- 
sincerity, when the Lord did not speak, even 
in his soul, as the writer thought. This but 
reveals the fact that God can use for one 
generation, a man who could not serve 
another generation. Erring as he is, he leads 
those who are about him to the dawn of a 
better day. It is nowadays, for example, 
getting to be very hard to use the Psalter, 
because the Psalms need so much sifting to 
126 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

find sentiment suitable for Christian worship 
and feeling. Single passages of great in- 
spiration, on account of their lofty plane, are 
mixed with long outgrown ranges of thought 
and life. 

The Bible does not part with Divine in- 
spiration, because it invites and ever chal- 
lenges great freedom of interpretation. Your 
interpretation may be right or wrong, but the 
literature was never written with that modern 
exactness of verbal criticism which salutes a 
book to-day fresh from the press. Some 
things come out by accident rather than on 
purpose. Some things may never be under- 
stood, but the literature deals frankly, 
simply, largely, ingenuously with us. 

By deciding, in advance, how good or 
great God is, and how he reveals and in- 
spires, we limit the Holy Spirit in His effort 
to develop us b3^ bringing together anew for 
every soul, those materials which are needed 
to reveal God to that soul. Such a man 
cannot be taught. The truth is just so long 
and just so broad. It is caught in the amber 
of the book. There is no room for sugges- 
127 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

tion. He can not press on with courage for 
the future. Fear is his mood. The golden 
ages are for him the ages of the Canon. 

There is also a use of the word plenary, in 
the matter of inspiration, which is employed 
to express dissent from strictly verbal in- 
spiration, but which is not conceded to con- 
tain any considerable departure from the 
traditional use of the Scriptures. The Bible 
inspires, because it suggests, but does not 
describe the truths of the moral and spiritual 
sphere. It shows us the partial, not the 
plenary power. There is a great storehouse 
of fact and latent philosophy in this litera- 
ture, but it never had in any of its parts a 
theological motive as the primary one. Even 
in the Gospel of John, the spiritual idea is 
far in advance of the theological. The books 
are all the more evidently Divine, because 
they do not pretend to contain all Divine 
truth. It was expedient that Christ should 
go away, in order that the Holy Spirit might 
not be localized and in order that worship 
might be no longer at either Gerizim or 
Jerusalem. The Spirit of the living God 
128 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

moves in humanity revealing God, revealing 
man, revealing immortality. The Bible, 
Nature, Humanity, pour into the deep sea of 
Christian consciousness raising each genera- 
tion nearer God. 

The Bible has happily been so long in the 
world, and so won its way amongst men, that 
many are sensitive to any word that seems 
too tamely to describe its place and power. 
There is such a vast scale of progress between 
its earlier and later compositions, that words 
used to describe the former fail to do fairly 
by the latter. The early writers deal with 
beginnings, and are themselves beginners. 
The later writers are penetrated with the 
lofty Spirit of Christ, and rise with Him into 
a lofty enthusiasm for humanity. The Bible 
is a vital, not an ecclesiastical collection. 
The books are spiritual photographs of the 
process of revelation. These pictures were 
taken at different times and from different 
points of view, with varying light and shade. 
They are all the more valuable because the 
ages were unconscious of being in any 
camera. The records are artless and accurate 
129 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

reproductions of the times, the state of litera- 
ture and the condition of the people. From 
them can be traced the steps of the unfolding 
revelation. The words used for the name of 
God are radiant with evidence of this develop- 
ment. The Bible, in its human coloring, like 
the Lord, is not less Divine because so human 
and real. Its visions are sudden, but not 
without long periods of preparation. The 
Bible is more complete and deserves more 
honor because of the imperfections made 
necessary to Divine adaptation. By imper- 
fections is not meant the errors of copyists, 
but those involved in the whole process of 
human and Scripture development. A period 
of conduct precedes a period of high motive. 
Principles are slow to fulfill rules. The least 
in the kingdom is greater in opportunity than 
the greatest prophet of the old order. Rev- 
elation is of, rather than from God. It is in, 
rather than to man. It is recorded and un- 
recorded, but never lost. It is not at any one 
point, the last word on the everlasting theme. 
As concerns source and direction, the current 
of the Old Testament is the current of the 
130 









WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

New. However, the river of Life deepens 
and hastens and widens as it flows. The 
writers are inspired. They inbreathe God. 
They have sufficient preparation for their 
work. They have all the preparation they 
can appropriate. Some have great gift but 
less spirituality. Others great spirituality 
but less gift. The literature fascinates and 
stimulates. It never represses thought. It 
gives a starting capital to the wayfaring man, 
but refuses to hold him up with authority or 
crutch by a plain meaning for every Scrip- 
ture. He must dig or beg. The Bible does 
not pauperize a man either mentally or 
spiritually. It is a standard, not the only 
infallible rule. It is a Divine auxiliary to 
revelation, not the revelation itself. That 
distinction belongs to Jesus Christ. He is 
the head of the corner, the keystone of 
History. The Bible is a telescope through 
which we look to find God. 

Our theory of inspiration need not suffer 

because the writers incorporated existing 

records. Errors of immaturity serve as 

eddies in the stream, and show by contrast 

131 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE. 

the strength of the main current. We are 
not to defend a course contradicting the 
Spirit of Christ, when the Bible records a 
wrong, with or without favorable character- 
ization. Inspiration may concern any partial 
statement which it would require knowledge 
of contemporary conditions to fully explain. 
Inspiration leaves room for interpretation. 
How can we know any subject or object 
without the double right of bringing it to the 
reason and the reason to it. 

The parts of the Bible which help us, the 
diligent learn to find and love. We magnify 
the final discrimination of the apostle. 

"Every Scripture, given by inspiration of 
God, is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, 
for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness, that the man of God may be thoroughly 
furnished unto every good work." 



132 



VI. 

THE GOSPEL POWER. 



"And I, brethren, when I came unto you. came not with excel- 
lency of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the mystery 
(or testimony) of God. For I determined not to know any- 
thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." 
(Not the crucifixion of Christ, but the character of God repre- 
sented in his disposition to suffer and die for his children.) 
—St. Paul. 

"I plead for the love of God. which resists sin and triumphs 
over it, not for a mercy which relaxes the penalties of it. 
With continual effort, only by the help of that revelation of 
God which is made in the Gospel of Christ I am able to believe 
that there is a might of good which has overcome evil. * * 
To maintain this conviction, to believe in the love of God, in 
spite of the appearances which the world presents and the 
reluctance of my own nature, I find to be the great fight of 
life. * * I admire unspeakably those who can believe in the 
love of God and can love their brethren in spite of the opinion 
which they seem to cherish, that he has doomed them to de- 
struction. I am sure that their faith is as much purer and 
stronger than mine, as it is than their own system. I do not 
call them to deny anything they have been wont to hold; but I 
call upon them to join us in acknowledging God's love and 
his redemption first of all, and then to consider earnestly 
what is or is not compatible with that acknowledgment." — 
F. D. Maurice. 

"This revelation which is made in the person of Christ 
brings God ver}' near to us. We see this son of God entering 
into all our human experiences, toiling, hungering, thirsting, 
rejoicing, weeping; we hear him calling himself the Son of 
Man, and it is borne into our minds that the chasm which our 
thought had made between divinity and humanity does not 
exist; that we are, indeed, what Jesus always calls us, the 
children of our Father in heaven. * * But the sufferings of 
Christ reveal something more than the love of God for men, 
they reveal his hatred of sin. For in order that men ma3 r be 
saved, it is needful not only that they be enabled to under- 
stand God's love for them, but also that they be taught to 
share his wrath against the sin which is destroying them. To 
human beings in their present environment, these two ex- 
periences are necessary to salvation,- love of the good and 
hatred of the evil." — Washington Gladden. 



VI. 
THE GOSPEL POWER. 



'"I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ ; for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ; to 
the Jew first and also to the Greek." Rom. 1:16. 



This is the greatest theme possible to 
letters or speech. It underlies everything. 
It concerns the most important affairs of our 
nature and future. The apostle Paul realized 
that it was necessary to solve the problem of 
being, to learn the secret of a happy life, to 
in some way gain the end, the goal of exist- 
ence. He therefore sought what he called 
righteousness. Righteousness was the end 
as regards virtue ; joy was the end as regards 
welfare. The two were necessarily united. 
The apostle stood at a period in history when 
he sought to tell his countrymen, that the 
time had come to seek righteousness by a 
higher process and by a more effectual 
method than had ever been used. The Jews 
were very much afraid that the apostles were 
135 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

going to abandon Moses, throw away the 
orthodoxy of the past, rid the world of the 
wisdom of the ages. They therefore adhered 
to what they called the law, or righteousness 
as administered by Moses and the prophets. 
But Paul said, That which you have only 
been trying to do by law is accomplished in 
a person, is realized by a new method, the 
Gospel, the glad tidings of Jesus Christ. He 
knew that he would everywhere meet with 
opposition. He did. The Greek opposed 
him with what Paul called "wisdom," that 
is philosophy. The Roman opposed him 
with organization and force. The Jew op- 
posed him with those methods of righteous- 
ness with which Paul himself, had become 
familiar as a scholar under Gamaliel. 

The apostle did not throw away the past. 
He honored the moral constitution of the 
race. He declares that those, whose moral 
natures have not had the Jewish training, 
can "do by nature the things contained in 
the law." The men, like Socrates, who rose 
above their fellows, received full credit for 
their attainments as well as for their common 
136 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

humanity. There is do sneer at ethics as 
such. Rather there is no higher moral 
standard than that which he proclaims. It 
is not his first care however to set forth the 
superiority of his model. This is assumed. 
Paul puts himself on common ground with 
those devout souls who have not accepted the 
Christ. He assumes that they with him seek 
to attain an ideal, and seek it by the best 
means. Finally he says, I have discovered 
the way to do it. The power which can 
carry this work on, from the point where all 
else fails, is found in the Messiah. All that 
men tried to do with simple light of unin- 
structed conscience, all that the Jew sought 
by ritual and priesthood, is made complete 
in the personal power of God revealed through 
Jesus Christ. Paul had stumbled around too 
long, as great intellects have often done, to 
exhort his readers to do good and be good, 
without giving them some proportionate in- 
centive. Christianity was not, first of all, 
righteousness to Paul, but a power to secure 
righteousness in the soul and society. 

The primitive religions had failed. The 
137 



THE GOSPEL POWEB. 

empires with which they were connected 
were falling into decay. Conduct was their 
criterion and not a very high standard either. 
They dealt with the idea of obedience. This 
was their refrain, "obey, obey"; not so much 
an inner principle as an outward law, but 
whether they were trying to obey the inner 
or the outer, nevertheless that word was 
about as far as the human race had come. 
"Obey" is a most important idea, but it is 
weak relative to the whole problem of in- 
spiration and salvation, because it commonly 
leaves out that degree of obedience which has 
given us the Gospel. The individual existed 
for the state in old Sparta, not the state for 
him. When the true place of man was dis- 
covered old traditions fell back. Once the 
ideas to conjure with were Roman citizen- 
ship, or being a son of Abraham. Their 
service to the world was to fade before the 
new idea of human brotherhood. 

The Jewish system above all the other 
systems emphasized righteousness, and cul- 
tivated moral earnestness. A deep sense of 
unrest was found in the great natures, and 
138 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

we find them tossed with the feeling of the 
contrast between the ideal and the real. 
They knew not where to turn because of the 
vastness of the problem of life. Now we are 
in the same old struggle. It is a study of 
the human mind. It is not theology. It is 
not philosophy, but simply fact. All have 
this great gap between what they are and 
what they would be, what they see and what 
they want. This ideal chafes against the real 
till it passes into worry and fret. It is also 
the Divine Providence that the world is to be 
lifted up by compelling us to strive. We 
have before us the ideal man Jesus. We 
have in him what we nowadays call manhood 
instead of righteousness because manhood is 
a word that is more natural and more com- 
prehensive. If Jesus Christ is a model of 
manhood, then in order to be a progressive 
man, one must be Christian, because the 
future of the race and the definition of the 
nature of any individual in it, is realized in 
Jesus Christ, who stands as the actual com- 
prehension of the ideal and the real. This 
however is not the Gospel. If it proved im- 
139 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

possible for the ancient world to build men 
and nations on conscience and intellect 
struggling with law, then the problem is 
rendered impossible of solution, since we are 
given only a harder task. The gulf widens 
between us and the tantalizing vision of per- 
fection which enchants as it recedes. Every 
proclamation of the beatitudes may make us 
despise the righteousness of the scribe, but 
we are lost to all peace and progress if we 
attempt the repentance of Jesus with the 
baptism of John. 

The power of Jesus was unique. Many 
have tried to account for Jesus by inadequate 
methods. He was not an orator as Cicero. 
He taught the people by the roadside and the 
well. He calmly sat and conversed w T ith 
them. He simply reasoned the simplicities 
of the truth as it is. Men saw and loved him. 
He was born under a cloud. He had no 
schooling, as schooling w r ent in the theo- 
logical seminaries of that day. He had no 
ordination from the temple authorities, and 
yet he was a religious teacher. He did not 
affect any of the fine arts in his work. He 
140 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

did not use philosophy. He did not organize 
to any considerable extent. His organiza- 
tion was of such simple character that it is 
almost impossible to find it. He never wrote 
a line of parchment, leaving the field of 
literature entirely out of view. He did 
nothing in the way of diplomacy. He made 
no appeal to the sword. He had no wealth. 
He did not know in the morning where he 
was to lay his head at night. He did not 
know from whence was to come his next 
meal . He was dependent upon the generosity 
of a few friends. Their gifts were devoid of 
special money value. He stood for one idea, 
that idea as large as the universe, the idea of 
love, friendship, brotherhood. And he raised 
that so high or rather brought it so low that 
the centuries have said that the best is in him 
and that if we reach the best in us, we must 
discover an inspiration, a sufficient motor to 
move the soul and solve the problem of reach- 
ing the complete human stature. Christ's 
example alone is the absolute annihilation of 
hope, but Paul proved that there was no hope 
141 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

even before the consideration of this example, 
of gaining the ideal. 

Nor is this all which impels us to look 
further than love considered as duty, to find 
hope for the individual and society. Many- 
things have followed the advance of Christ- 
ianity. Science, commerce and art have 
poured their treasures upon the nations where 
Christ is held in honor. Honesty, virtue, 
truth, righteousness, make rich. All the 
promises of the Old Testament about abun- 
dant vineyards are being fulfilled in every 
righteous people. These things added to us, 
as those who put first the Kingdom of God, 
bring great problems, especially where it is 
proposed to cut down the tree and keep the 
fruit. The generations have passed through 
a great evolution. What is that resident 
force which helps individual men to toil 
wuthout weariness, to master the flesh, to 
grow without the withering sense of failure. 

We may not part from our ideals, we do 

not readily do so in matters not religious. 

The house we live in w 7 as once nothing but a 

hole in the ground and then came the idea of 

142 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

four posts with some kind of thatch and finally 
another room where we put a part of our 
things instead of having them all in one room, 
and then three rooms, and by and by came 
architecture and all the comforts of life as re- 
gards the home. Everything we take up has 
this wonderful evolution in it. We work it 
out in everything except religion, and then 
we say, Well, I don't know. I think I am 
good enough now, I don't need any more re- 
ligion. Here we have the old story of con- 
ceit, and nothing can be done about it. 
Nothing ever grew in that soil. You can 
improve the soil in a man of weak mental 
faculties, but there seems to be nothing to do 
for the man or the mood of self-sufficiency. 
One may say, If there is anything better than 
I have, I want it. The other says, There is 
nothing better than I already have. 

There is however the man who confesses 
his shortcomings, and still shirks. He urges 
inability as excuse for a lack of aspiration. 
The ideal is degraded by others who want 
credit for being conscientious and yet desire 
to escape from the labor which duty involves. 
143 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

They accuse the leaders of being dreamy, 
impracticable. They do not as of yore, kill 
the prophet, but they freeze him. To escape 
the annoyance of hearing what they do not 
propose to apply, they may rid themselves of 
the pain of straight preaching, by staying at 
home and cutting the nerve, leaving the hand 
dead and powerless to lift their fellow-men. 
Or on the other hand, they may attend 
church and insulate themselves by the at- 
tempt to feed their religious natures on the 
falsely mystical, not on music, but on music 
divorced from truth and life. Paul was not 
that kind of stuff. He faced his ideal. He 
concealed nothing. He ran from nothing. 
He stood before the truth, heard it through 
and then declared what, in various measure, 
is the universal experience of those w T ho try 
to find peace by working on lines of law. 

"Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death!" 

In the forced inarch of virtue, he was 

chained by the wrist to a dead comrade, 

whose body he was compelled to carry 

while trying to maintain his place in the 

144 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

ranks. The power of deliverance which he 
sought and found, he now proclaims to the 
world. His message came with a moral 
grasp felt by a mind of the first order, and a 
heart large enough for Jew and Greek. 

The secret of our success in this life, as 
God counts success, the secret of it in the 
individual and in our prosperity as a nation, 
our social regeneration and development in 
sweeter manners and purer laws, the sole 
secret is the Gospel. That is the remedy. 
That is what this country needs, life from 
God, more life from a God who is in sym- 
pathy with humanity, who identifies him- 
self with men, who gives himself in Jesus 
Christ as a hostage, so that he goes up or 
down with us. A great wrath and pity are 
self-reconciling in an infinite love bent upon 
and realizing the cure and salvation of men. 
We are identified with him and he with us 
in this fact of power to build manhood. 
Thus, while we hold our ideals, and do not 
try to put them down, nor ignore them, nor 
stay away from places where they are con- 
templated and studied, but make a business 
145 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

of guarding the slightest flame of the spiritual 
nature, we do so by a new method. We 
substitute a personal for a legal process, we 
find that our relation to Jesus is one of friend- 
ship, and therefore identification of interests. 
He bestows power upon us as a gift. This 
gift does not imply a dole or charity, but 
friendship. God is our friend and he brings 
power. He throws his force into the scale 
where are balanced evil and good, and evil 
kicks the beam. He asks us not to keep the 
iron hot by striking it, but to heat the iron 
and when it is hot, to strike it. We are to 
be saved, not by what we already are, not by 
the virtues he has helped us in other ways 
to attain, even if one should surpass the 
apostle St. John, but by himself, by his 
eternal nature revealed in Jesus Christ. 
Why does God help you and me? Why does 
he take an interest in humanity? Because 
he loves to do so. Why did you help that 
man yesterday? You love to do those things. 
The philosophy of it is that you have a habit 
of helpfulness, the outgrowth of action and 
life choice. God loves the sinner, and the 
146 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

gospel for every age and country is, that 
when we have power oi any kind, be it wealth 
or learning or skill, that superiority brings 
with it responsibility, and we merge our- 
selves in our brethren and we love to do it. 
We live in it and grow by it. God's method 
is, to be sure, ethical, but ethics that depend 
upon the absolute God. If we are trying to 
be right, if we are in a current of desire, 
hope and attempt, God says, Those imper- 
fections in my child do not count. I do not 
hold those against him. I am tr}4ng to take 
him where he is and get him up out of his 
imperfections. I am trying to bring him 
into a personal relationship that will make 
life a large, free, rich thing to him, so that 
the Christian life will be a privilege and the 
service of God a delight. That is the way 
God talks to us. The morality we have is 
good as far as it goes. God desires that we 
should all have more. This is not only de- 
sirable but necessary, because not to grow is 
to die. Higher character is absolutely indis- 
pensable. God is not jealous of you because 
you are able to add some qualities that do 
147 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

not at once seem to be very directly related 
to prayer and the church, but remember that 
this morality is but the root of a tree yet to 
grow, of fruit yet to be harvested. Spiritu- 
ality and morality then center in this devel- 
opment of salvability. Is there anything 
that we ought to be more thankful for than 
the fact that we can grow? We are here to 
grow in charity for one another, in generosity 
and magnanimity and kindness and love for 
all mankind. This is the first great lesson 
of life. 

A rich man is not to be despised because 
he is rich. Who does not want riches? A 
poor man is not to be despised because he is 
poor and wears poor clothing. He cannot 
change his clothing as often as other men. 
He is no more vulgar, if he be vulgar, than 
the vulgar rich man who knows how to earn 
his money and does not know how to spend 
it, while the poor man thinks he knows how 
to spend it and may not know how to earn it. 
W T e are not to be communists and hold all in 
common, but what we need to do is to put 
together our common interests in the com- 
148 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

mon brotherhood of charity, to realize that 
when we have worked our full time in the 
mill, we have not discharged our full obliga- 
tion to our employer, since he is also out 
brother; and when the employer has paid the 
wage agreed upon he has not, in so doing, 
discharged his full responsibility because he 
too, is dealing with a brother. We are to 
see Jesus Christ in the face of every man, 
not by virtue of the character which is now 
his, but by virtue of that salvability, the 
process of righteousness which the friendship 
principle works out. That is the Gospel. 
That is all of it. Brethren, we are called to 
the liberty of the sons of God. 

Salvation is thus a very clear process in 
which reason, conscience, ideals, motives 
and friendship mingle. Salvation means that 
God loves man and man, despite his wander- 
ings, loves God. The love in God is the 
ground of our hope and accomplishment. 
The love in us is the salvability which gives 
salvation, or the love of God, its leverage and 
opportunity. We would not be salvable, by 
any fictitious, imputed righteousness. Now 
149 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

if there be any old commentary or sermon 
about the house that preacheth another gospel 
you may not need to keep it under lock and 
key, because the sheep know the voice of the 
shepherd, and it probably has few if any 
readers. This sort of literature is already 
on sale in job lots with many other books for 
a few cents, or found in broken sets on the 
top shelves of second hand book stalls. 
Such works have but a fleeting interest for 
the man who has formed the habit of rever- 
ing a book as a book, just as people are 
willing to believe a statement they see print- 
ed, when if the same statement were made 
by word of mouth, they might give it no at- 
tention whatever. 

The apostle was not a theologian engaged 
seventeen hundred years in advance of the 
Westminster Confession, to support that false 
system. He was a brother Jew writing to 
his countrymen in the Jewish quarter at 
Rome, and incidentally to the Gentile 
element, that there was a new motor discovery 
for right living and that it would w T ork for all 
mankind. The epistle to the Romans is no 
150 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

longer the hard book to understand which 
the teachers made it. A child can under- 
stand it now, if I am right in the following 
free paraphrase in words of one syllable : 
Paul, who was a great and good man, who 
had love for all men and his Lord, said that 
men who sought to do right and to be right 
at heart by work at the church and such like 
things were in the same wrong way he was 
when a young man. He did not blame them, 
but said, while you should not work less, do 
not get the cart in front of the horse. Do 
w r ork in the free air of love. Work by love 
not b}^ mere love of work. Peace will dwell 
in your mind as you learn to lose self in the 
work of love. You seek to do good not to get 
peace, and peace seeks you. So you see 
peace is the child of love and faith, not of 
work for the sake of work. Where love is, 
sin is not, for love casts out sin. 

The law of ritual is fulfilled in the law of 
love. The law of ethics is completed in the 
law of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is 
holy, because perfectly ethical and friendly. 
The law of lofty ideal becomes the law of 
151 



THE GOSPEL POWER. 

happy obedience. Peace in the soul enables 
us to walk with God through the imperfect 
and failing scenes of a life growing in strength 
and freedom. We are not ashamed of the 
Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God 
unto salvation, to both salvability and grace, 
to salvation by truth, by the living truth of a 
perfect friendship. 



152 



VII. 

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 



"There is a drawback to the value of all statements of the 
doctrine; and I think that one abstains from writing or print- 
ing on immortality of the soul, because, when he comes to the 
end of his statement, the hungry eyes that run through it will 
close disappointed; the listeners say, that is not here which 
we desire, — and I shall be as much wronged by their hasty 
conclusion, as they feel themselves wronged by my omissions. 
I mean that I am a better believer, and all serious souls are 
better believers in the immortality than we can give grounds 
for. The real evidence is too subtle, or is higher than we can 
write down in propositions, and therefore Wordsworth's 
"Ode" is the best modern essay on the subject. We can not 
prove our faith by syllogisms. The argument refuses to form 
in the mind. * * Speak of the mount in the mount. Not by 
literature or theology, but only by rare integrity, by a man 
permeated and perfumed with airs of heaven,- with manliest 
or womanliest enduring love,— can the vision be clear to a use 
the most sublime. And hence the fact that in the minds of 
men the testimony of a few inspired souls has had such weight 
and penetration. You shall not say "O my bishop. O my 
pastor, is there any resurrection? What do you think? Did 
Dr. Channing believe that we should know each other? did 
Wesley? did Butler? did Fenelon?" What questions are these? 
Go read Milton, Shakespeare or any truly ideal poet. Read 
Plato, or any seer of the interior realties. Read St. Augustine, 
Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant. Let any master simply recite 
to you the substantial laws of the intellect and in the presence 
of these laws themselves you will never ask such primary 
school questions." — Ralph Waldo Emerson. Letters and Social 
Aims. Essay on Immortality, pp. 280-281. 

"It is not by any speculative ideas of philosophy, but by the 
vision of Jesus' life and death, and by the feeling of his im- 
perishable union with God that mankind, so far as it believes 
in these things, has attained to that certainty of eternal life for 
which it was meant, and which it dimly discerns- eternal life 
in time and beyond time. This feeling first established faith 
in the value of personal life. But of every attempt to demon- 
strate the certainty of immortality by a logical process, we 
may say in the words of the poet: 

Believe and venture; as for pledges, 
The Gods give none. 

Belief in the living Lord, in a life eternal, is the act of the 
freedom which is born of God."— Harnack. What is Chris- 
tianity? p. 176. 



VII. 

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 



"I am come that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly.'* Jno. 10: 10. 

"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a 
place for you I -will come again and receive you unto myself 
that where I am there ye may be also.*' 1 Jno. 14: 2, 3. 



Men cling to life. Outside of the range of 
Christian influence, men not only fear death, 
but even regard it with terror. Christianity 
has largely removed the fear of death, while 
at the same time doubling her own task, by 
increasing the desirability of life. There is 
rarely much pain at death. What men dread 
is annihilation. Some sa} 7 that death ends 
all . Others deny that death is the end . The 
result is a painful questioning. It is no un- 
common thing to hear a man say, "I would 
give anything to know T whether immortality 
is a fact." A large class comes into contact 
155 



LIFE AND IMMOBTALITY. 

with religion just enough to keep agitated, 
and not enough to make its great truths the 
basis of conduct or the inspiration of life. 
They deprive themselves of the greatest proof 
of immortality. There is a proof of immor- 
tality in the probable argument from reason 
working in the fields of philosophy and 
natural science. There is however a higher 
and more convincing proof in the demand the 
soul makes when that same reason is clari- 
fied, not by an emotion, but by that more 
complete obedience to law which can make 
the mortal heavenly. 

We are not to refuse audience to the views 
of philosophy, because our own faith in every 
future event rests on probability. Let us 
rather call up, as our first witness, Father 
Time himself, with his scythe, hour glass, 
hoary locks, and high forehead. He is to 
testify of time not eternity. Tell us Father, 
what you know about immortality from your 
observation of men. His answer is, that 
men, as a rule, have ever clung to a belief in 
their immortality. Here and there individ- 
uals have doubted and attacked the doctrine. 
156 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

These cases are exceptional. They have 
rather served to demonstrate the vitality of 
the teaching, which has gained headway in 
spite of attack and strengthened its hold on 
the soil, as the winds of wintry doubt have 
wrestled with its branches. It is easy to 
undervalue this witness. No one can afford 
to ignore the drift of the centuries. It may 
pay to ignore the testimony of one man, or 
ten men, but the agreement of a race, and an 
agreement made emphatic in the ratio of 
growth in civilization, is quite another 
matter. "Men may," it is objected, "believe 
what is after all not true." Yes, one man, 
ten men, even a generation; but when you 
consider the masses of men, it takes less 
credulity to say that the fact of immortality 
corresponds to the belief, than to say that it 
is untrue. This idea gathers force when we 
remember that we do not have to quote 
merely the heroes of the visible church, but 
that Cicero, Plato, Plutarch, Montesquieu, 
Franklin, Robert Burns, Emerson, and a 
host beside, held to belief in immortality. 
157 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

These facts remove the question above the 
level of scorn. 

No man ought to want to die as the beast 
dies. If he takes such a creed, let him hold 
it reluctantly, not by choice. There is noth- 
ing very pleasant about it. Let him prove 
to us that death ends all. We are all alive 
here today. We shall all be alive tomorrow, 
unless something occurs before that time to 
kill us. The only thing we know, that can 
be conceived to kill us, that is, to com- 
pletely end both soul and body, is called 
death. So far as anyone can see to the con- 
trary, death only disorders the material or- 
ganism. It redistributes the type in nature's 
font. It cannot distribute the ideas and 
spirit which the type has expressed. I exist. 
It is an assumption wholly without founda- 
tion, that death touches the soul. No one 
should say, I die with the body, when even 
Mr. Ingersoll can assert, "Hope may hear 
the nutter of a wing, and faith may see a 
star." 

Science has taught us to expect surprises. 
Immortality is no greater surprise than the 
158 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

origin of species. The origin of species is 
no greater surprise than the development of 
animal from vegetable life. This in turn is 
not so great a leap as the one from inorganic 
to organic nature. These facts remove all 
presumption against a future environment 
for the soul which shall correspond to its 
nature and the law of its growth. If science 
has established anything in regard to the 
method of the Divine creation, it is, that 
harmony exists between the various parts of 
nature. A fin on a fish means water. A 
wing on a bird means air. A cushion on the 
end of a camel's leg means hot sand. The 
wild geese going south means winter. Mor- 
tise and tenon do not so closely fit as one 
part of God's creation fits another. The de- 
sign is not less because of the manner in 
which it is displayed. The harmony tran- 
scends appearance, and reveals as kindred, 
varing forms of life. The Christian is the 
type of the future. The Earth, though a 
vestibule of immortality, is becoming like 
the porch of the Hebrew temple, beautiful. 
Nature furnishes the raw material. The 
159 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

harmonies are hidden. The order is, search, 
discovery, use. The stages of ascent are 
barbarism, civilization, christianization, im- 
mortality. We do not have to wait for the 
full development to enjoy a goodly measure 
of its benefits. We are under happy laws, 
not caprice. God could be neither wise nor 
good to give the young wild goose the in- 
stinct by which it safely goes from Manitoba 
to the sunny south and then bestow on man 
the much stronger instinct for a summer land 
of immortality only to fool him with anni- 
hilation. We not only believe in and desire 
a future life, we demand it. Animals do not 
demand it. The law of harmony is not 
violated in their case. Unlike men they 
have a bounded horizon. They secure a 
speedy development and serve their purpose 
of utility. Man, on the other hand, develops 
slowly and at the best only gets a start in 
this life. When he shakes off the flesh, he 
is just prepared to live. The greatest men 
are in haste to call themselves infants. They 
admit that they have but touched the hem of 
the garment of knowledge and character. 
160 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

They "have only taken a few steps. Earth is 
the alphabet, Heaven the literature of hu- 
manity. Our lives are full of plans. Some 
succeed. Some fail. "Hearts are broken, 
heads are turned by castles in the air." It 
was not wrong to construct some of them. 
"Better to have loved and lost than never to 
have loved at all" applies to much of this 
life. It is quite another thing to say that 
disappointment is the main fact, when all the 
facts are understood. Men cannot be fooled 
all the time. They will not be content with 
the food that satisfies a brute. Aspiration is 
not forever married to doom. What God has 
not joined together He will most certainly 
keep asunder. 

Things happen every day which make us 
desire distributive justice. We say that man 
will have to give an account. There will 
have to be a reckoning. A righteous appre- 
hension of a future judgment rises in us. It 
looks beyond this life. The Creator could 
put in us an apprehension of a future judg- 
ment to act solely as a restraint in this world. 
He would be guilty of making us believe a 
161 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

lie in order to govern us. The government 
of human affairs is clumsy. Men who are 
smart go free. The dull criminal is caught. 
Those who are comparatively innocent suffer 
degrading punishment. God's justice w r orks 
itself out on a long and correct scale. Our 
God surely believes in government by the 
people, instead of interfering Himself or help- 
ing kings and vice-gerents to do so in His 
name. But should he hold court at the town 
hall tomorrow, in place of our regular judge, 
we should be interested to see who would be 
called into court. It requires a future life to 
make the last first and the first last, to right 
wrongs, to proclaim things secret, to vindi- 
cate honor. Merciful and righteous dis- 
criminations will obtain dominion. Immor- 
tality is necessary. There is a Heaven, 
There is a Hell. Neither is physical. Both 
begin in this life. The former never ends. 
The latter does not end in this life. Here is 
a good man impressed with hope. There is 
a man depressed with fear. His sins are 
real, great and unforsaken. The feelings 
are not accidental. They follow law. We 
162 



LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

are looking at a portrait of humanity. These 
facts have little meaning unless there is a 
future life. 

Note also the abounding hardship of the 
world. Terrible diseases are to be fought. 
Pov T erty is to be struggled against by millions. 
Storms, fires, floods, earthquakes, massacres, 
temptations, evils legion, mountain high, 
attend the infant steps of man. "The whole 
creation groans." Mr. Ingersoll was right. 
Said he, "If I were to make the world I would 
make health catching." He is right, if this 
world be all. The sacrifice would not pay. 
The burden would be too great. The pain 
is not guaged to the need of one short life 
soon to end forever. Force yet rules the 
larger portion of the world. The vast mili- 
tarism of the European powers, is a confes- 
sion of this fact, whether it is regarded as a 
necessary defense or the spirit of aggression. 
The doctrine of one w T orld at a time is false, 
if by it one means to ignore the worth and 
dignity which the truth of immortality be- 
stows. Mental, moral and spiritual manhood 
are trained in the school of difficulty. Too 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

noble qualities are being developed to make 
health catching. The cost is too great for 
the return on the investment. We demand 
an immortality wherein pain and every sort 
of expense shall prove themselves justifiable. 
No one objects to a God who is a consuming 
fire if His fire has a purifying purpose and 
result. 

Again the belief is not only associated with 
the highest type of character found in the 
world, but men and women declare that 
without the fact of immortality they would 
not have that character. It would seem to 
be impossible to escape the conclusion that 
belief in immortality is essential to the 
growth of the best manhood. The lives not 
only of Paul and Luther, but our February 
saints, Lincoln, Mary Lyon and George 
Washington received motive and power from 
an immortal perspective. If it be declared 
that they only imagined the dome over their 
heads to be lighted by beams from an eternal 
world, then we are asked to believe that a 
delusion can produce good character and that 
a falsehood is more wholesome than the truth. 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

Bach year many loyal citizens step aside from 
their usual duties to give special honor to 
Abraham Lincoln. Many a pulpit rings with 
patriotic pride for the martyr president. Of 
him John Lothrop Motley, the historian, has 
said, "He went through life bearing the load 
of a people's sorrow with a smiling face. As 
long as he lived he was the guiding star of a 
whole brave nation, and when he died the 
little children cried in the streets." Is this 
such a man as our pantheistic friends sacrifice 
to the mass of society, while leaving no more 
room for his own personality after death, than 
the smoke of a locomotive has, as it dis- 
appears in the frosty air ? Our home and 
friendship ties bind us more closely together 
as years pass. The young couple have a 
more demonstrative love than the old. The 
old couple have a deeper love than the young. 
Time enriches life. It removes some things 
and brings in others. The vitality and power 
of the affections are intense, unconquerable 
and always growing. Little ones come and 
go. Often the only consolation that makes 
life endurable is belief in immortality. Life 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

would be a tantalizing thing, not worth 
living, a lie, without a future life. 

Thus far we have been answering the 
question put in the book of Job, "If a man 
die shall he live again ?" We may open the 
New Testament and find that Jesus Christ 
assumed immortality, while he brought life. 
If He had not been going to prepare heavenly 
mansions for them, He would have told them 
so. Such things were matters of course. 
The prime condition of the occupation of the 
mansions, was keeping His commandments, 
character. He therefore spent all his time 
in telling them by example and precept, how 
to live. Having the revelation, the personal 
Gospel of the risen L,ord, we have complete 
peace. The Gospel is not a guess. It is 
revelation. It is not limited. It is univer- 
sal. It is not relative. It is absolute. It is 
not a future matter to wait for, but a present 
lever to pry up life. It is itself life. It is 
for Earth as well as Heaven. It is eternal, 
a gift rather than a promise, a possession 
rather than a hope. "He that believeth on 
me hath eternal life," not will have it. Who 
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LIFE AND IMMOBTALITT. 

believes that He who spoke these words was 
annihilated at the change we call death? 
Love declares its own eternity. There are 
transient elements in the Earth, but genuine 
virtue is not one of them. Some say that "a 
man without virtue may exist hereafter, but 
that a man with virtue ought to live forever." 
He will. Eternal life and eternal virtue are 
synonymous terms. It is not enough to 
exist. We must live. Existence without 
life may be worse than death. Life without 
existence is an absurdity, Doubt and sin 
are not necessarily related. It is neverthe- 
less true, that more men would have the con- 
viction of immortality, were it not for the 
blur which sin makes. Eternal life should 
appeal to man not as a reward but as an in- 
trinsic good. It develops the whole man. 
It builds him on a larger scale than he would 
otherwise be constructed. Immortalit} r gives 
scope, outlook and satisfying range to the 
mind. It gives tonic. It makes tolerant. 
It justifies sacrifice. It can afford to be 
serene in the storms of life. It is full, free, 
growing, abundant lite. Some one asks 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

whether I am willing to "call it salvation." 
No ! It is more. It includes salvation. It 
is sufficient in itself. It can if necessary be 
happy in Hell. 

Looking at humanity exactly as it is, we 
often fail to discover very much dignity. 
We might easily spare the citizens of China, 
India, Africa, Turkey and many other coun- 
tries. Sink these countries in the sea and it 
would be hard to show that the world had 
lost one idea or a single invention. Take an 
illustration nearer home. Take the first man 
you meet. He has this, that or the other 
good quality. The rest is accounted for by 
the fact thai he is assuming, or is good look- 
ing, or that he has a good address, or has 
had forty thousand dollars left him by a rich 
annt. He is an overestimated soul. He is 
an immortal far from home. Can we help 
matters? We can first of all throw the man 
on the true and eternal perspective. Wait. 
He is now in the seed form. I grant you 
more, that the man is mean, that he is a liar. 
You will have to regard him as a very sick 
patient. Project this ignorant, sinful man 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

against the background of a hopeful eternity 
and you will be able to work when you would 
otherwise despair. There is a victory for the 
race through him who "tasted death for 
every man." Each man has an infinite 
value and unlimited possibility of growth. 

Heaven is pictured for us in the Scriptures. 
We receive it as pictorial. From the ex- 
ample of the Scriptures we, as individuals, 
accept the same structural principle of pic- 
turing our Heaven. The pigments of our 
painting are taken from our daily life. 
Deeds and spirit mingle to make a beauty 
which we can not analyze. The best artist 
is the one whose w r ork is the most truthful. 
He has the ascending habit of imagination. 
His moral genius works upw T ard instead of 
downward. He parts with a dear friend and 
Heaven is joined to earth by one more golden 
cable. The older he gets the more populous 
the other world becomes. The disposition of 
us in families here, the gradual, certain call- 
ing of us all one by one, deepens our convic- 
tion of immortality. 

We dare not trust mere existence. If we 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

hope to meet and associate forever with those 
who have gone before us, we must live on 
their plane. Existence in an animal can 
be conceived to consist with annihilation. 
The question has been raised whether we are 
naturally immortal or whether we win our 
way to immortality in life inspired and im- 
parted by Jesus Christ. While one may not 
subtract at all from the importance of the 
arrival at Heaven by the vital ethical process 
of "truthing it in love,/' as Paul would say, 
we must believe that immortality is knit into 
our soul tissues. It is easier for one to 
believe that man is so made in the image of 
God, that it is all but impossible to get that 
image out, than it is to think that there is so 
little of His image in a man, that masses will 
have to meet annihilation because they do 
not rise into the life of the Christ in this life 
or the life beyond. It was for this reason 
that Jesus rejected the temptation to em- 
phasize material prosperity or to win results 
with the crowds by sensations of magic, or 
lord it over them by power. 

Whether your view of the facts leads you 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

to hope or to fear, this great fact remains, 
God is love demanding life and life is love 
demanding, not a fair chance merely, not a 
probation even, but all that an almighty, all- 
loving father can devise in not only begin- 
ning, but completing the creation and educa- 
tion of his own child. It is our highest 
privilege to find refuge in God's eternal 
goodness. The incarnation and the events 
which it includes, were not after-thoughts of 
God to relieve a desperate and unexpected 
situation. It was God speaking to his child, 
as soon as the child could hear. It was God 
appearing to his child, as soon as the child 
could see. The practical question is a pres- 
ent world issue. 

Jesus assumed the truth of immortality. 
He did not discuss the speculative question 
whether immortality is natural or an attain- 
ment. Neither did he fail to make it vividly 
clear that immortality, like our experience 
on Earth, depends for its value on our obedi- 
ence to the laws of our being. His thought 
transcended time. Eternal life was not life 
belonging to eternity, but life in common 
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LIFE AND IMMORTALITY. 

with time and eternity, above both, coinci- 
dent with and independent of both. It was 
life from God and in God, life in society here 
and there, life abundant and growing, de- 
manding prepared environment for a pre- 
paring character, an environment adapted 
to the needs of each, and directed by the 
Heavenly Father in his universal problem of 
educating and training his family. He has 
undertaken the work and he will carry it to a 
successful issue. The proof of immortality 
for a given person is another matter. Shall 
we exist or live? As we answer this ques- 
tion, in this world, each one for himself, we 
admit or reject an enlarging sense or personal 
proof of the dignity of life, the humanity of 
God, the victory of righteousness and im- 
mortality itself. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

022 216 723*1 



